Posted by Laurie Sullivan at 1/26/2008 5:10:00 PM

The Kindergarten students learned about two ways astronauts prepare to work in space. Jackson, Mrs. Sullivan’s son who used to attend Barrett, was one of the teachers. We watched a video clip of astronauts training in the reduced gravity jet, also known as the vomit comet http://brainbites.nasa.gov/vomitcomet(Click PLAY on the remote control). We also watched a video clip of astronauts training in a huge pool called the Neutral Buoyancy Lab. Then each student received a “spacesuit” and a tank of water. Their challenge was to make the spacesuit “flink”, neither float on the top nor sink to the bottom. How could they make the spacesuit neutrally buoyant?The students remembered that they saw weights being added to the astronaut’s spacesuit in the video clip. They discovered that they needed weights (paperclips) to be successful. Read more about the methods NASA uses to simulate microgravity at Wikipedia.