OAK FOREST, Illinois USA — For the past several months, a group of seventh-graders at Hille Middle School in Oak Forest have concentrated on learning about rocket science - specifically space travel and the planet Mars.

Their most recent activities were part of the school's science gifted resource class. Science teachers choose students they think show an aptitude for advanced science and recommend them to Suzanne Law's class.

Law has been working with students on space travel for the better part of second semester. After spending two months learning space travel concepts, the students took a trip to the Challenger Learning Center in Hammond, Ind.

There they applied what they learned during a "Mission to Mars" simulation. To the staffers at the center, these weren't students: They were astronauts.

Students were grouped into teams that focused on a specific part of the mission, whether it was building a rocket engine or rescuing a lost team of astronauts on Mars.

To tie everything together at the end of the space travel unit, Law has her students build model rockets and launch them.

The project requires work in several disciplines: mechanical, electrical, chemical and mathematical.

Law's class had their rocket launches Monday, one day before school let out.

"This is a great motivating experience for the end of the school year. It keeps them (students) focused but it can still get kind of crazy," Law said.

Law put the class into several groups that each built their own rocket.

Besides teaching them the mechanics of such a launch, she taught them about how an electrical current ignites the chemical propellant and how to avoid shorting it out.

Law also had a student with a device that, when pointed at the apex of the rocket's flight, would measure the angle. Coupled with the measured distance from the launch site, students could then use geometry to figure out about how high each rocket traveled.

The students had been working on their rockets for about a week. Law said she was impressed by their dedication to the project because the would often skip their lunch period to work on it.

It was a self-directed project, she said, where she pointed kids in the right direction and they took it from there.

Copyright © 2008, Neighborhood Star.