Space camp astronaut Jon Fincher

GUSTINE – “What did you do this summer?” is a typical question asked by teachers to their students the first day back at school.

For one teacher, however, this year it was the opposite. Gustine resident Jon Fincher, a fourth grade teacher at Westside Union Elementary school in Los Banos couldn’t wait to tell his class about his summer adventure…. his week at space camp!

“Personally it was the best experience that I have ever had,” declared Fincher. He only had to wait a week following his adventure before the year-round school was back in session.

His students have already been inspired by his adventurous stories and space related activities. “I had a student today, (Friday) that brought me a model of an astronaut she made in second grade and a book about space that she wanted to share with me,” he described. Other students have discussed with him their interests in space as well.

Fincher was one of 300 teachers selected from around the world to attend the 2008 Honeywell Educators at Space Academy held in three sessions at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala. He attended the third session, from June 24-30. Honeywell sponsored the experience entirely, funding transportation, lodging and meals for the participants as well as materials for the program.

The academy is designed to provide educators the knowledge, experience and materials to inspire life-long learning for students in the subject fields of math, science, engineering and technology. Fincher was informed that these are the fastest growing professions in business, yet the United States has the fewest number of students coming out of school qualified in those fields. This program hopes to change that by teaching educators how to incorporate components of space education with math and science lessons. All the lesson plans and activities the teachers experienced at the academy follow the national standards for math and science.

Fincher has had an interest in rockets and space since childhood but admits he did not have an extreme knowledge of space before attending the academy. “I remember watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon,” he reflected. His family did not own a television at the time but his parents would rent one for important events, which made the moment stand out in his memory even though he was only 6 years old. He was fascinated. “My parents let me build and launch rockets when I was young,” he said. He still does when he gets the chance, and Fincher recently advised a rocket club for students at his school.

His rocket experience came in handy during the rocket construction class at the academy this summer. “My group’s water bottle rocket went the highest,” Fincher noted. It was one of the many hands-on classes that he experienced.

The academy was packed full of classes, activities, presentations, tours and astronaut-style trainings and simulations.

The classes covered areas such as engineering design, scientific experiments in space, creative and fun math and geography, environmental and geological activities. The teachers were able to experience each lesson themselves and given the lesson plans and resources to bring it back into their own classrooms.

“Toys in space” was a fun class which brought the child out in the students. “Who doesn’t like playing with yo-yo’s and such,” Fincher noted with a smile. The physics lesson was about gravity using common toys, theories and opinions formed in the classroom and then results shown through actual film footage taken of those toys being used in space.

Engineering design was another class he found interesting. Students learned about the use of thermal protection units (the tiles on the shuttle for example) and had to design one to protect a screw they hot glued to a dowel using only a couple of nuts, a copper wire screen and some tin foil. Each group’s design would be tested to see how long it would last at a specific distance from a flame before the screw fell off the dowel. The experiment taught about the effects of air space and the reaction of different elements to heat.

Teamwork was a crucial component throughout the week’s experience.

The first day the group of 100 teachers was separated into smaller groups of about 17. Fincher was in the group named Destiny, comprised of educators from around the country and one from Australia. Fincher was the only teacher from California. Team-building exercises helped the group become familiar as well as identify the leaders in the group and how they all would best work together using the strengths and talents among them.

“I used one of the exercises, (the human knot) in my classroom the first week of school,” Fincher noted. The exercise truly worked to identify the role each person played in the group.

At the academy the leaders who emerged through the exercises ended up being the commanders of simulated shuttle missions.

Fincher was able to test his abilities with the helo dunker (simulated helicopter crash and rescue), the elliptical trainer and other simulators which tested gravity, centrifugal force and weightlessness in space. One instrument simulated what it would feel like during a take off at 16 Gs. “Your face is pulled completely back and you can hardly move your arms and legs,” Fincher described as he acted out the scene.

Destiny completed two simulated shuttle missions. On the first one, Fincher was the station commander responsible for overseeing the mission scientists and making sure docking of the space station was completed smoothly. When anomalies (space problems) appeared, he would have to call mission control and follow the appropriate protocol. “Our counselors were space ghosts for the mission,” Fincher explained. “They were constantly creating anomalies for us to solve.”

On the second mission, roles were switched and he was one of the astronauts suspended outside the shuttle to inspect and repair the damaged tiles.

The whole experience was enormous fun while being productive for the local teacher. He experienced and learned so much during the week he said he is definitely working towards the requirements for applying for the advanced course.

“Professionally, I learned more from the teachers there than any other professional development courses I have taken,” Fincher stated. In addition to the wealth of information, materials, and resources Fincher returned home with he has developed a great network of people he can turn to for support and advice. “Our group was the best. We became very close through the week and we’ve already been sharing ideas of how we are using what we learned at the academy in our individual classrooms,” he said.

Fincher expressed his appreciation to Honeywell for providing his rewarding experience at the space academy, and said he looks forward to passing his renewed enthusiasm for math and science on to his students as he encourages them to aim for the stars.