Most of this class was very much "over my head" in terms of biology and chemistry. That being said, this was one of my favorite parts of Camp because we actually saw the DNA of a strawberry. Not like you see in CSI with all of the little lines and all that, but a little bubbly spiral. Very Cool - my kids will love this when we talk about genetics. Basically we squished up a strawberry, strained out the juice, and added some shampoo and salt. All of a sudden you could see the little DNA spiral rise up from the strawberry juice. I hope Kara doesn't mind I am using her, but her picture came out the best.
Mission Training and Discovery Mission:Today was our first Shuttle Mission simulation. We had about an hour for training in our positions and then we had a two hour mission. Each person had a specific job in either the Space Shuttle, in Mission Control, or on the International Space Station. I had the job of Payload Specialist. This meant I launched with the shuttle, then crawled over to the Space Station, did a few experiments (like make oobleck), the head back to the shuttle, and the return to Earth.
Each person had a script that was basically timed to the second. Our Commander and Pilot had about 100 switches, buttons, and codes to enter in approx. 45 seconds. It is amazing how fast paced and how intense these missions are - and ours was not real. Now I understand why astronauts train on these things for about 3 years!
Our Mission went well - we all came back safely - even though I was almost left of the Space Station. Mission Control didn't realize I wasn't in the Shuttle - oops!
Story Musgrave:
Our lecture this evening was from 6 time astronaut Story Musgrave. He spoke about the NASA Space Program. Once again he stressed the importance of teaching our kiddos for the technological world in which they will be working.
http://www.spacestory.com/intro.htm
That night we were all still wound up from our successful mission so we blew off some steam by singing karaoke. No pictures :)
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