Incredibly Motivated Deaf Student Heading to Space Camp!
My students need access to Space Camp; it's a great experience and Deaf students are just as capable and brilliant as hearing children. This a great chance to show that.
My students are always eager to learn, especially those subjects that really grab their attention. Many of the students dream about the stars, about landing on the moon and about designing fast or explosive things. Naturally, space and NASA are incredibly exciting topics for the students.
I teach about 1/3 of the Deaf population in Utah and have some incredibly curious students.
They are "typical" in the sense that they want to design and build things, as well as getting excited by fast moving objects and explosions.
My students are particularly excited by space and NASA and have been working incredibly hard at learning NASA's history, some of the main missions that NASA has completed, and in even designing rovers and satellites (as well as studying the International Space Station and Hubble telescope).
The school that I work for does an amazing job at working to try to provide opportunities for the Deaf students to keep them equal with their hearing peers, and I am hopeful that this will be another opportunity for our students to shine on a very advanced level.
This opportunity is different because it would allow a Utah student to collaborate with several other state's (and possibly country's) Deaf students to show just how brilliant and able Deaf students are.
My Project
The student that attends this week-long experience will work with other Deaf students from his school in Utah, as well as across the nation to design rockets, engineer filtration systems, create "fireproofing" to protect their rockets and even complete 3 missions! They will use a wide array of skills and attributes to complete these tasks including science, math, engineering and historical recollection skills.
This camp would undoubtedly provide an unforgettable experience and my hope is that it would inspire a future scientist or engineer, but at the very least, will open his or her eyes to the future, to technology, to equality regardless of hearing status and to critical thinking skills that apply to everyday occurrences.
This opportunity would have a profound impact on my classroom because a blog would be kept and all of the students in the school could participate by responding to the blog and seeing videos and pictures of the selected student in action.
I know that the thought of Space Camp alone sets a fire to many of the students in the corresponding Earth Science class, so behavior has improved, attendance and even homework has benefited!
Enough can't be said about how valuable this experience would be.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. Oyler and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
