Middle school STEM teacher Colleen Cain from Troy Michigan, got an opportunity to test classroom experiments during a zero gravity flight. Photo credit: The Oakland Press
It is always exciting when an educator gets an opportunity to enjoy a unique experience that sharpens her teaching skills. Colleen Cain, a middle school STEM teacher from Michigan, was given such an opportunity last March. She travelled to Fort Lauderdale to test classroom experiments during a zero gravity flight.
Colleen experienced 11 minutes of weightlessness during a series of maneuvers aboard a specially-modified Boeing 727 aircraft. The flight, which has been compared to riding a roller coaster up and down steep hills, allows teachers and researchers to float freely at the top of each maneuver. Over the course of 30 maneuvers during one flight, Colleen conducted several experiments that her students had been working on for over a year.
The outstanding teacher was offered the opportunity when she attended a conference at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, during the summer of 2022. There she met educators involved in the Embedded Teacher Program, a partnership between the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, the National Space Society, and Space for Teachers.
The most difficult part of the experience, says Colleen, was designing experiments that could be performed in short time periods, since the window of time in which the participants were weightless was so brief. “It was a challenge because you had to design an experiment in micro-gravity you had to do in 20-second bursts,” Colleen examined. “Your first instinct is to start swimming, but they warn you not to, since you have nothing to push off on or stabilize yourself.” In the future, Colleen says, her experience will impact how she teaches her students. “t was so incredible,” she remarked. “It’s such a unique experience that I get to share with my students.”
Colleen teaches science to seventh graders at Larson Middle School in Troy, Michigan. Her career as an educator spans 19 years, nine of them at Larson. She is a National Geographic Certified Teacher.
