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Space education is program's mission

Posted on: Friday, 20 February 2004, 06:00 CST

Space education is program's mission

By NICOLE SWEENEY nsweeney@journalsentinel.com, Journal Sentinel

Friday, February 20, 2004

University of Wisconsin-Parkside professor Carol Lee Saffioti- Hughes heard the questions from students after the Columbia shuttle disaster.

The young people at her church, the same that astronaut Laurel Clark once attended, peppered adults with questions of how it happened, why it happened, what happens now.

And Saffioti-Hughes was struggling with a question of her own: Would the tragedy drive young people away from space exploration?

That fear is at the heart of Saffioti-Hughes' new project, "Rekindling the Fire: Honoring the Work of Commander Laurel Clark." The program targets Racine and Kenosha's at-risk youth and includes activities ranging from a model rocket launch to a visit from a NASA astronaut and an American Indian storytelling session about the night sky.

The space education program is being funded through a grant from the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium. Saffioti-Hughes hopes her project will reach at least 100 students over the next year, and that it will inspire more women and minorities to seek careers in science.

She says that push is especially needed now, when students may be wary of science exploration.

As someone who was deeply affected by the Challenger explosion in 1986, Saffioti-Hughes wonders what effect the latest space disaster will have on this generation. Clark, a Racine native, and six other astronauts died Feb. 1, 2003, when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated while on re-entry.

"Young students, especially middle schoolers, might be hearing it at a critical time and think, 'Well, who cares about this anyway, and why would anyone want to get involved with space exploration?' " she said.

Although Saffioti-Hughes teaches English, science education is one of her passions. The grant's category is devoted to programs that celebrate the links between art, poetry, music and science. She believes that Laurel Clark's own interests reflected those links.

"Laurel was just so amazing," Saffioti-Hughes said. "She was writing back in very poetic terms of the beauty that she saw there (in space.)"

The start-up grant of $5,000 will pay for the project's first phase, and Saffioti-Hughes hopes to win other grants to fund the rest of the project.

"It's not the dollars," Saffioti-Hughes said. "You can do very modest, simple things that get kids excited about science, and that's the wonderful thing about it."

The first program will be a model rocket project March 12 called "Make It or Take It," where middle school students will build and launch their own model rockets.

"You get a kid involved in the thrill of making something and you've got them for life," she said.

Saffioti-Hughes also is trying to line up an astronaut to meet with young people this spring.

In the project's second phase next school year, she hopes to bring the NASA bus, which is a traveling display of interactive science exhibits. The second phase also will include storytelling from American Indian communities in a program called "Keepers of the Animals, Keepers of the Night Sky."

"There are many, many cultures who have knowledge of the skies," Saffioti-Hughes said. "Native traditions are important for our children to learn, considering we had native science long before we had contact with European science."

She also hopes those lessons will boost the self-esteem of minority children. The number of minorities and women going into science careers has stayed steady in recent years, she said.

Dan Buschmann, a guidance counselor at Kenosha's Lincoln Middle School, said he hopes the program opens students' eyes to more science careers. His students are excited already about participating in the model rocket launch.

"They're kids who haven't really been exposed to that kind of stuff before, so it's a new opportunity for them."

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