| SPINNING IN MICROGRAVITY |  |  | | The Crossroads Team |
Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX – February 7-16, 2008 - Crossroads Elementary School is returning to Zero G. A new group of sixth graders are building on a 2004 experiment in a microgravity environment to conduct a comparative study between rotational motion on the ground in St. Paul and on board NASA’s C-9 Reduced Gravity Flight. The specially equipped C-9 takes off from Johnson Space Center to fly over the Gulf of Mexico where it performs a series of parabolas. Going “over the top” flight participants experience a 45° free fall providing them with 30 seconds of microgravity (0G) at which point they begin a 45° (2G) climb. This unique flight pattern is repeated 30 times. On board Crossroads’ teachers will be conducting and filming student-designed experiments. Once back in St. Paul, students will have the chance to study the video in an effort to draw conclusions about the experiments they entrusted to their teachers.
The Crossroads’ team consists of Kristin Pengra, sixth grade teacher, Martha James, Creative Movement Specialist, Marni Oberpriller, Visual Arts Specialist, and Janet Christensen, Special Education teacher. Together they have formed an interdisciplinary team to examine the science of rotating objects, our bodies in motion, and the visual elements of spinning. From this understanding of rotational movement, students are developing questions about rotational motion for investigation by the teachers in microgravity. The end result will be a poster display of their experimental proposals, hypothesis, and results along with a choreographed movement presentation representing our definitions of turning, twisting, and spinning.
Students have been working to apply an understanding of Newton's Laws of Motion on a spinning body. They began by determining characteristics of objects that spin. Students then designed and built experiments to test their hypotheses. They conducted ground tests, collected data, and displayed them in charts and graphs. These data will be compared with data taken in the microgravity environment to demonstrate how rotational motion is affected in reduced gravity.
Their experiments are being flown as part of the NASA Explorer Schools Program's effort to support math and science education in schools across the country. By providing these opportunities to experience the process of experimental design, formation of hypotheses, and collection of data in a truly unique environment, NASA hopes to encourage the next generation of explorers to further their academic pursuits in science, math, technology and engineering.
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Image Gallery:
Crossroads at ZeroG
 
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