[meteorite-list] Teacher Brings Pieces Of Moon To Classroom

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:06:13 2004
Message-ID: <200211011915.LAA13602_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=5908649&BRD=1426&PAG=461&dept_id=186027&rfi=6

Teacher brings pieces of moon to classroom
By JEANNA CUNY
Plano Star Courier
November 1, 2002

Donny Williamson may be the only teacher who had to take security training
for show-and-tell. For the last nine days, Williamson, a technical education
teacher at Wilson Middle School, has been showing his students rocks valued
at $100,000.

The six moon rocks, encased in plastic, were loaned to him by NASA.

"I had to make a contract with NASA that I wouldn't let them out of my
sight," Williamson said as he placed the silver carrying case on a desktop.

At night, when he isn't gently placing them under a microscope explaining
the view to teachers and students alike, the samples and their case are
placed securely under lock and key in the school safe.

In the meantime, he shares his treasure with anyone interested.

"Hold out your hands. You're one of the few people in the world who has ever
held a moon rock," he told 11-year-old Pirjin Ahmed.

Ahmed, a Wilson Middle School sixth grader, said she liked the Anorthosite
sample best.

"I like the one that looks like it was a strawberry," she said. "It was cool
because it had the redness in it."

Her classmate, Lauren Kershaw, also chose that sample as her favorite. She
was glad she was allowed the experience.

"I liked that I got to see them," she said.

She said because she was expecting large rocks, she was a bit disappointed
in the size of the samples.

"But, it was still cool because they're moon rocks," she said.

Thursday marked the end of the stay for the school's space visitors. At the
end of the day, Williamson said the rocks would be on their way back to
their home at the Houston Space Center.

During the nine days he had the rocks, more than 1,200 students have seen
and held them, Williamson said. Most of the teachers stopped in for a look
as well.

"'Awesome' was the most prominent word," he said.

That doesn't mean future students won't have a chance to get an eyeful of
the moon up close, though.

Every three years, Williamson asks NASA officials to send the samples to the
school for students in each of the three grade levels to see.

Shoko Ishikawa, 12, said she thought her encounter with the moon rocks would
not only stick with her, it would encourage her to learn more about the moon
and space exploration.

Although she said she enjoyed looking at the Orange Soil sample, it raised
some questions in her mind.

"I thought the moon was kind of white in color," she said.

Marion Tucker, a sixth-grade science teacher at the school, told a class
about her experience with a geologist who trained astronauts to gather
proper evidence while they were on their mission.

"When I went to space camp this past summer, I got to meet a geologist who
had to teach the astronauts what kind of rocks to pick up," she told the
students. "There are certain kinds of rocks that tell more geological
history that would give a clue as to the makeup of the moon's early years
and the Earth's crust."

While pairs of students peered through a microscope at the rocks, their
classmates watched a slide show, narrated by Williamson, about the moon and
its explorers.

The lesson explains what scientists knew about the moon before the Apollo
space missions and what information those astronauts gained on their trips.

Even more than 30 years after the first mission in 1969, scientists still
are learning about the moon's geology, Williamson said. Larger portions of
moon rocks are kept in an atmosphere of pure nitrogen to prevent
contamination and destruction at the space center, where scientists reach
into the bubble with gloves to carefully handle and study them.

During the moon exploration trips, about 250 pounds of rock was brought
back, he said.

The small examples serve the same function at the middle school as they do
at the space center.

"Our purpose is to study them," Williamson said as he explained how the
Anorthosite sample came to its appearance.

"A meteorite was red hot when it hit the moon, and evidently it rolled," he
said. "I think it looks like a black strawberry with some kind of icing."

Contact Jeanna Cuny at 972-543-2238 or at cunyj_at_dfwcn.com.
Received on Fri 01 Nov 2002 02:15:38 PM PST