Growing Taste For Technology

By: | TriCities.com
Published: October 01, 2009

Giving teachers an opportunity to fly on a jet that simulates zero gravity also offers that experience vicariously to the students in their classrooms.

We hope it also leads to the ultimate goal organizers intend: an explosion of interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics – the foundation of future careers.

On Saturday, two local teachers – David Stallard from Wise County and Rhonda Kilgore from Scott County – will join a dozen others for the “Zero-G Experience,” a chance to fly on a jet that simulates the gravity on Mars, the moon and total weightlessness. The experience is designed to give them a taste of what it might be like to be an astronaut.

The sheer thrill of the experience is sure to inspire many of their students. Megan Seals, a native of Big Stone Gap and a former NASA intern who now teaches in Fairfax County, participated in an earlier one of these flights.

But the experience, flying out of Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C., isn’t cheap. It costs about $5,000 a person, money generally raised through volunteer efforts. For Stallard and Kilgore to participate, the Southwestern Virginia Technology Council and the Big Stone Gap Masonic Lodge No. 208 raised about $11,000.

The council, the Masons and Wise County Circuit Court Clerk Jack Kennedy are challenging other civic groups to raise more money for additional flights – to sponsor other regional public school teachers and their students. Kennedy is the secretary of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority and a tireless advocate for technology education.

We hope more civic groups and businesses will answer their call.

The funding will open the door for teachers and students to have these out-of-this-world experiences, and encourage more budding scientists and astronauts to study science, engineering and mathematics. Our children deserve these life experiences and a crack at the careers that come from a science and math foundation.

So we are excited to see two more regional teachers chosen to take the flights Saturday, and we challenge other groups to sponsor more educators, and students, for future trips.

For more information on sponsoring a future flight, contact Kennedy at (276) 275-4700 or jack@jackkennedy.net.