MUSKOGEE, Oklahoma USA — A grant for Oklahoma's STARBASE program can help hundreds of area students get a closer look at aerospace and rocketry.

The Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission recently awarded a $35,000 grant to STARBASE Oklahoma for 240 desktop computer flight simulators and several thousand Estes rocketry kits.

"Students will actually get the chance to see how airplane rudders and ailerons work," said Lt. Col. Kim Howerton, deputy director for Classroom Instruction for STARBASE Oklahoma. "The flight simulators will be for desktop computers and will help them learn about the properties of air and the four forces of flight."

The rocketry kits enable kids to build their own toy rockets and blast them off. Howerton said the rocketry lessons "reinforces the three laws of physics."

STARBASE is a national program geared to teaching science, math, engineering and technology to students in fourth through eighth grades. STARBASE classrooms are located throughout the state, including Camp Gruber and Davis Field. Schools send students to the classrooms one day a week for five weeks, the equivalent of 30 hours of instruction.

Area districts that have sent students to the program include Muskogee, Gore, Oktaha, Webbers Falls, Warner, Woodall, Norwood, Okay, Braggs, Tenkiller, as well as St. Joseph Catholic School. Students also learn about the dangers of drugs and alcohol.

Angie Wheeler, who teaches fifth-grade math and science at Grant Foreman Elementary School, said her students are in their fourth week of the program.

"They did experiments with plants and the effects of drugs," Wheeler said. "They had three sets of radish plants. They used alcohol with one set, cigarettes with another set and had a control set. The plants with alcohol dried up, the ones with cigarettes developed mold and brown spots, the ones with no cigarettes or alcohol grew normally."

Wheeler said the program also "reinforces group work and team skills."

More than 3,200 students participated in STARBASE Oklahoma programs last year.

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