Nasa Has Landed At Courville

Friday, July 9, 2004

Courville Elementary School is one of only 50 schools in the country that have been selected to be NASA Explorer Schools.

Selection means that for the next three years, NASA and the 4^th and ^5th grade students at Courville will be partners in learning, focusing on the space program through visits, videos, tele-conferencing, working together on projects and exploring the career opportunities in the space program.

The school is also now eligible to receive grants to purchase technology tools that support science and mathematics instruction. But one of the real high points of this partnership is that the students get to meet people from NASA such as an astronaut.

That’s what happened when astronaut Michael Bloomfield (originally from Flint) came to the school. He is a veteran of flights on the Endeavor mission to assist with the assembly of the U.S. space station, the Atlantis mission, and a flight to dock with the Russian space station MIR.

Because of the special partnership, several Courville teachers will receive training at NASA’s John Glenn facility in Cleveland, Ohio in workshops created specifically for the students at Courville. The staff team leader, Laura Speegle will also travel to the Kennedy Space Center for more training and more fascinating information to bring back to the students to start off the new school year.