Students in Erica Meng’s fifth-grade class at Benton Heights Elementary School listen intently as NASA engineer Donner Gigsby and Gamaliel Cherry with NASA Langley Educational Center, answer students’ questions during a live web-conference September 14, 2007. Also pictured is, seated, UCPS Curriculum Coordinator Tom Moncrief, who orchestrated the web-conference, Benton Heights principal Mike Harvey and Meng.

Technology brings the world to the classroom

Fifth-graders at Benton Heights Elementary School had live one-on-one conversations with NASA officials September 14, 2007,, utilizing state of the art technology to bring the world into the classroom.

“I think this was amazing – students from downtown Monroe talking to NASA engineers,” said Benton Heights Principal Mike Harvey. “You could see the connections the students were making with the real world. Those students will never forget about that experience in school. They’ll never forget how the weather affects people going into space.”


“I’ve never seen the students so excited to come to school,” said their teacher Erica Meng who said the web-conference with NASA was part of her science lesson on weather. “They’ve talked about it every day for the past two months.”

Luke Mincey, 10, thought the experience was incredible. “I’ve never gotten to learn about NASA in my whole, entire life,” he said. “It’s really exciting for me. Our fifth-grade class was chosen by NASA to have this conversation. That makes us special. They’re answering our questions that we emailed them.  They’re talking about climate and how the sun and the moon affect the weather on Earth.”

The exchange occurred during live web-conferencing, using the web-based program called Elluminate. UCPS Curriculum Coordinator Tom Moncrief communicated live with NASA by instant messaging dialog to them, while they responded via video feed, similar to a live TV broadcast. Participating were Donner Gigsby, NASA Engineer, and Gamaliel Cherry with NASA Langley Educational Center.

Moncrief said because of this cutting-edge technology, students were able to communicate with NASA and never leave their school. “It didn’t cost a cent to do this,” he said. “No buses were used, no plane tickets. We didn’t have to bring the NASA engineers down here, which would have been very costly. We talked to them for an hour and they didn’t have to leave their place and we didn’t have to leave ours. It didn’t disrupt the educational day.”

The 22 students in Meng’s class sat mesmerized as Gigsby and Cherry answered the questions the students had emailed to them. Gigsby explained that weather plays a huge role in the Shuttle’s launch. NASA has to watch the weather very carefully, he said, not only when the shuttle takes off, but also along its projected path of reentry to Earth.

“We do not launch the space shuttle when it’s raining,” Gigsby said. “You’ve seen how when driving in an automobile, how hard the rain hits the windshield. That’s only going 55 or 65 mph. Our space shuttle goes 17,000 mph. The rain would go right through it like a bullet.”

About half-an-hour into the web-conference, Gigsby and Cherry took additional questions from students in the class via Moncrief’s cell phone. “If there is ever a medical problem with the astronauts in space, what would you do?” asked one student.

“We try to avoid situations where the astronauts could get sick or hurt,” Gigsby said. “We stress with them to be careful because they’re so far from home and there’s a limited time frame that they can come home.”

Another student asked, “What happened if there was a technical problem with the shuttle?”

“One of the things we could do is go to our hotel in space – the space station, but normally if there’s a problem in space, they would get in the space shuttle and come home,” Gigsby said. “We don’t have hospitals in space. We don’t have a fire department or police department or even a telephone company. If something’s wrong and you can’t fix it, you’re only choice is to come home.”

As Benton Heights is an arts magnet school, Meng said the NASA interviews were the final part of a science lesson on weather in which she integrated the arts, first using cameras to document the weather and then watercolors to demonstrate the weather. “The NASA engineers talked about how the weather affects space travel, and what kind of weather is in outer space,” she said.

Originally, students were scheduled to talk with Barbara Morgan, the teacher who went into space with six crewmates the first week of August aboard NASA's space shuttle Endeavour. Hurricane Dean, however, forced the early return of the Endeavour, canceling the scheduled interview. Moncrief then coordinated Friday’s web-conference with Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA.