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World Space Week 2002 Report
On October 5th, around 600 people, between pupils, parents and friends, attended at St. Peter's School premises a morning dedicated to space related activities.
- Kindergarten pupils, age 3 and 4, worked on a mural and built a mobile that included stars, planets, space-ships, etc. The 5 year olds built an enormous
rocket with disposable material.
- 1st. Form Pupils, aged six, presented a group dramatization, "El Misterio de la Galaxia" in Spanish and "Little Rock on Mars", in English. They
also had a display with posters on the subject.
- 2nd. Form Pupils, aged seven created a play where different characters represented the earth, sun moon, planets, showing the movements of the
earth, the different phases of the moon, the change of the seasons in Spanish. "Journey into Space" – the ballad of Elizabeth Moo and our imaginary planet was also performed by the children.
- 3rd. Form and 5th. Form Pupils gave atmosphere to a very big classroom, as if one entered outer space. They darkened the room,
planets, stars, even a rocket and astronaut hung from the ceiling. In that atmosphere some children showed an audiovisual "Maravillas y fantasias del Universo" (in Spanish), alternating it with legends that
spoke of the origin of the solar system, and others read stories they had created "Lovely Aliens" in English.
- 4th. Form Pupils presented areports where they had worked on Ray Bradbury's texts "Más allá de la tierra, el infinito fantástico" (in
Spanish) These nine year olds' also turned their classroom into a completely dark room, with black light, where you could join in "A magic trip to outer space" where they showed galaxies and other
characteristics of the sky.
- 6th. Form Pupils worked on a Power Point presentation "Constelaciones y cuerpos celestes", and with a display in their classroom "Out in Space
through time"-
- 7th. and 8th. Form Pupils showed their hydroponics cultivation in the Labs and a series of panels and models referred to the
conquest of space. There were also works on "Nutrition in Space", dehydrated food, diet in space, food conservation, etc. These were all Lab experiences with their subsequent explanations. "Imágenes
Satelitales" was another presentation which was done with satellite pictures borrowed from the Servicio Metereológico Nacional.
- Polimodal I Pupils 15 year old, published a magazine "Mundo Astronomía" which we are sending separately. They also worked in a survey where they asked all
the visitors if space activities justified public investment in Argentina today. The pupils will work on the results with their sociology teacher.
- Polimodal II and III Pupils aged 16 and 17, worked on Lab experiences studying bone tissues and cell samples, measurement series and
re-crystallization. They also created and showed an audiovisual "La collision del cometa Shoenakerlevy en Jupiter".
- Space Club Pupils, pupils who stay after school hours to work on this subject, presented three projects:
- Rover Sojourner showed the replica of the sojourner which took part of the Mission Mars Pathfinder from July 1997 to September 1998. The model
was built by a group of six pupils that used all the real facts and measurements to build a scale model .
- Mission to Mars was a project developed by eight students that programmed a simulation that allows us to actually travel to this far away planet.
Those that take the risk will have to cope with different situations, interact with different computer terminals that will act as Mission Control, Space Shuttle, International Space Station and Mission
Control in Mars. Pupils had to work with sophisticated soft and had to create all the probable steps and possible flaws that could happen during the trip.
- Rocketry During all this year another group of eight pupils have been working on this project aiming to make a rocket fly and being able to predict
its course. This project included the making of the fuel, motor, pressure nozzle, and the design of the rocket itself. All this investigation is based on data obtained trough the Internet. On this
special day visitors were able to watch videos with the results that were obtained during the different stages of the investigation. During the fair three static motor tests were held.
- Another group of pupils from St. Nicholas School accompanied by teachers and Heads, also took part of this fair and showed their investigations on
rocketry as well, making this meeting an enriching experience.
- To the aforesaid activities, a lot of writing – poetry, fiction – and even an Art Contest and a Literary Contest where another school,
Nazareth, took part.
Slowly and gradually we are managing to get more schools and ordinary people involved in World Space Week.
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