My students and I have been part of some really cool things this year. Here are the top 7:
7. I was on the radio! XL 106.7 came to broadcast from our school thanks to our cheerleaders, and I was on to talk about NITARP and how awesome science is! My principal took this photo after I was done chatting :)
Even though some of my students made some not so wise choices, we all made it home safe and dry despite the downpours and it was an awesome day. So many of them, even though they live in Florida, had never been to Kennedy Space Center before our field trip. They all had a great time and one student made a video of her time there. It's got some pretty awesome Dr. Who music. :) http://youtu.be/Iu_fahIFwow
My group was awesome.
in the apollo capsule... maybe NASA should think about sending skinny 9th grade girls to the moon next time... they fit four where there's only supposed to be room for three :)
obviously, I was really excited about this. :)
5. Robotics - League Championships
It was an awesome day. We were in first after qualifying, picked another rookie team as our alliance partner, and won the whole thing! We also won the motivate award for being enthusiastic and spreading the FIRST robotics fun. :)
The moments right after we found out we won was captured by one of our mentors, and it's awesome:
4. Robotics - State Championships
As if that wasn't enough, we made it to states (the top 24 out of about 80 teams go, and we were 18th). Though our robot took a few hits, we still had a ton of fun. If you've never been to a FIRST robotics tournament before, you should go. It's NERD heaven. We made a good impression on the judges, were called back, and we won the State Motivate award too!
our principal came to cheer us on! :)
craziness that is a state robotics tournament!
Here's the top of the trophy case at UHS... the nerds are taking over! :)
The team is fantastic and what might be the best thing about it is they're all juniors or freshmen! We've still got lots of time for more robot fun! You can follow the team on twitter- @team_fetch, tumblr- teamfetch.tumblr.com, and facebook- facebook.com/teamfetch. We're gearing up for another competition in April, this time with UNDERWATER SeaPerch robots!
3. a tweet from Homer Hickam! :)
I went to a really cool workshop in January, and I was tweeting about how cool it was all day. A woman from IBM caught it, and asked me to come speak at the press conference for the opening of the exhibit. It was crazy. I spoke after the VP of Epcot and the VP of IBM. It was pretty surreal. It was really fun too, because I got to take 2 awesome teacher friends along, my 7th period, and my GEMS girls. :)
We ended up on the disney news: http://wdwnews.com/releases/2013/02/21/central-florida-students-help-open-ibm-think-exhibit-at-innoventions-2/
and on our local news too: http://www.wesh.com/themeparks/disney/IBM-Disney-open-new-THINK-exhibit-at-Epcot/-/14183226/19003008/-/15k60ud/-/index.html?absolute=true&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=wesh
1. Google+ Hangout
We talked to astronauts. 5 of them. 2 on the ground. 3 on the space station. It was unplanned until the day before... but that's the way teaching is sometimes! :) I got a call from NASA explorer schools during 6th period, and they told me that someone canceled and they were wondering if I could do a g+ hangout with astronauts the next day.... and when you get a call like that, you say yes.
http://youtu.be/u8LI5JiWEfs
The video is on the NASA you tube page too. Check out 1:40 for our intro, 14:30 for our first question about women in space, 24:20 for our second question about science. Then we connected with the Space Station at 29:35 and our last question about robots is at 56:35! This was the craziest thing EVER, and I loved every minute of it!
You can probably tell why I haven't had much time to write lately :) Off to grade papers... one week til spring break!
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