Texas educators experience zero gravity in the name of tomorrow’s scientists

By Regina Corley

In April, 29 teachers from across Texas experienced the feel of zero gravity and opened a whole new world of science to students when they participated in Northrop Grumman Foundation’s Weightless Flights of Discovery program.

The Northrop Grumman Foundation began the Weightless Flights of Discovery Program in 2006 as a way to inspire students to pursue science and technical careers by inspiring their teachers first. The professional development program primarily targets public middle school teachers, but it will accept teachers from elementary and high school if seats are available. To date, the foundation has conducted 38 flights in 18 cities across the nation for more than 1,100 teachers.

The parabolic (or zero gravity) flight originated and ended at McAllen Miller International Airport. Zero gravity flights are performed using an FAA-approved aircraft called G-Force One. Specially trained pilots fly the aircraft in a series of maneuvers called parabolas, or arcs, between the altitudes of 24,000 and 32,000 feet.

While aboard G-Force One, the teachers conducted in-flight experiments. Afterwards, they received videos of their in-flight activities and created applicable lessons for their students in a hands-on workshop.

Participating school districts included: Harlingen Consolidated, Hidalgo, IDEA Public Schools, Irving, La Joya, McAllen, Odem-Edroy, Pharr-San Juan-Alamo, Point Isabel, San Marcos Consolidated and South Texas.

“This exercise offered our teachers an incredible opportunity to infuse science lessons with a new level of excitement,” says McAllen ISD Superintendent James Ponce, who had seven teachers in the program. “It also serves to remind teachers about the enthusiasm that they bring to the classroom and the love of children that led them there.”

There was no shortage of enthusiasm among the teachers post-flight.

“Asking me to name my favorite moment is like asking a small child what her favorite part of Christmas Eve is,” says Michelle Milligan, a math teacher at Michael E. Fossum Middle School in McAllen ISD. “If there was one thing in particular, I would say it was when I tried to drink water that was floating in space. It was like trying to catch a bug in your mouth. Didn’t work so well, but it was fun to try.”

Karen Dougherty, a Fossum Middle School science teacher, says she enjoyed executing a “Spiderman move,” crawling up one interior wall of the plane, across the ceiling and back down the other side.

“How many times can you say that you crawled on a ceiling without ropes and a safety net?” she muses.

The teachers will use what they learned in flight in their classrooms back home to excite kids about science-and technology-related careers.

“My intent is to have my students view the video of my zero gravity experience and its effects on the experiments we conducted,” says Dora Newell, a third grade teacher at Thigpen-Zavala Elementary in McAllen ISD. “We will conduct those same experiments in the classroom and then observe the differences Earth’s gravity has on the results.

“I believe that elementary school is where we set the stage for our students to love or hate mathematics and science,” Newell says.

McAllen ISD’s Secondary Science Coordinator Monica Kaufmann echoes the excitement of the teachers. 

“It’s not every day a person can experience weightlessness,” she says. “The enthusiasm that it brought to the campuses once teachers found out they were accepted to the program was exciting to see. Even the kids were excited. They were proud to have their teacher experience that.”