Day 8, July 14th

FIELD TRIP: BUEHLER CHALLENGER SCIENCE CENTER

Today we had a trip to the Buehler Challenger Center, a facility in Paramus dedicated to teaching students what it was like to be on a space mission.

Before they could step into the simulator, the students participated in a team building activity that required them to roll a small ball down a length of pvc piping.  The only catch was that each student only had about a foot of pipe and the ball had to be moved over 20 feet!

Once the students completed this they were able to step into the simulator
Inside the simulator students participated in all sorts of team activities to complete the challenger shuttle's origional mission to study the comet Halley

They even simulated a clean room!

While one group was aboard the space craft, the other team was in mission control, helping from the ground.

The students loved being part of a space mission, astronauts for a day!

Day 7, July 13, 2015

Mars ATV Retriever Challenge

For this activity, students were asked to design an arm out of k'nex that could support the weight of a book lamp for a specified distance

Every team designed differently!

The activity proved a lot tougher than the students anticipated

In the end, the project was a success!

Day 4 July 9th, 2015

DINNER WITH AN ENGINEER 

On Thursday the students ate  dinner with a few of NJIT's engineering students.

The engineer's fields of study spanned from chemistry to physics to bio-medical engineering

The engineers ate with the students and discussed with them what studying STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields in college would be like.

FIELD TRIP: MEADOWLANDS OBSERVATORY 

After dinner tonight we took the students to the Meadowlands Observatory where we learned loads of new things about the solar system

We were very fortunate to have good enough weather to see several planets through the telescope, including Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus!

Our trip to the Observatory was informative and lots of fun, even though we may have stayed up a bit past our bedtime...

Day 4 July 8th

Today the students started the day by learning about how different foods are eaten in space, they spent a day in the classroom discussing how they would take their favorite foods into space!

Later on, students conducted an experiment during which they extracted the iron contents from some samples of cereal:

Then we managed to squeeze some outdoor recreation in before the students went on to the computer lab.

Day 3 July 7th 

INTREPID FIELD TRIP

Today the students took a field trip to the Intrepid Aircraft carrier moored in Manhattan.  The students were able to observe a variety of aircraft and learn more about what the vehicles look like.

Students were able to read detailed explanations of how an aircraft carrier functions and see the dimensions of an actual space shuttle!

They even got to see what it was like on board a submarine!

We all had a great time aboard the Intrepid Aircraft carrier and museum!

This afternoon the kids took to the classroom to test out a familiar toy:

YO-YOs

Using the yo-yos, students learned how being in space can affect tasks that generally require gravity

The students worked together in order to determine what makes yo-yos work and hypothesize how they would work differently in space.