FULTON, NY – The frosty weather conditions were no match for the heated competition at Lanigan Elementary School’s annual rocket launch.
Students from each 6th grade class spent weeks in their classrooms leaning all about the science of rockets, while they build there own from science kits from the OCM BOCES Science Center.
Students painted and decorated their own rocket, most choosing a theme that reflected their own personality, from Hannah Montana to music and sports.
The sixth grade classes each launched their rockets one at a time, as their teacher narrated the action through a megaphone in true NASA style.
“Three…two…one…blast off,†echoed through the school yard, as classmate, staff members and parents watched each rocket launch into the sky.
As the rocket reached its max height, a parachute would deploy, allowing for a slow and safe landing.
Many students would follow their rocket’s position in an attempt to catch it as if fell to the ground.
While students launched their rockets into the sky, fellow sixth grade classmates calculated the rocket’s distance and trajectory in order to measure the approximate height of each rocket launch, charting the distances for later evaluation.
Lanigan sixth grade teacher Donald Losurdo was very proud of the launch’s outcome.
“We had a fantastic 100 percent flight rate. Everyone worked very hard on these rockets and students spent weeks learning about the aerodynamics, chemistry, and physics involved in a successful rocket launch,†he said.
The rocket launch is an annual tradition at Lanigan which closely ties to the sixth grade curriculum of studying forces in motion, Newton’s laws and reinforcing basic scientific concepts in electricity, aerodynamics, and physics.
