Boca El students visit with former Russian cosmonaut via web cast

June 22, 2011   ·   0 Comments

 BOCA RATON – Fourth graders from Boca Raton Elementary School, a “Technology School of Choice,” recently participated in a 30-minute international web cast with a former Russian Cosmonaut, Dr. Oleg Atkov.  He is a close friend of the Barskaya family, whose daughter was a student at Boca Raton Elementary and who also helped facilitate this learning opportunity. 

 Dr. Atkov explained his experiences as a cosmonaut and answered questions from students. 

 “Overall, it was a learning experience that our students will not forget,” said Boca El Principal Jerry Riopelle. “Who knows; maybe one of our students will be a part of NASA and explore the outer reaches of space.”

 While traveling aboard the Soyuz T-10, Dr. Atkov spent more than 237 days in space in 1984, which was the longest time spent in space to that date.  He is listed at the number eight spot for total days spent in space.  Today he has written more than 150 articles and works in the telemedicine field.

 Over the past two months, fourth graders have been learning about space and space exploration.  As a part of this unit lesson, students were engaged in many different learning opportunities which concluded with two special activities:

• A trip to the Kennedy Space Center, where they explored and learned about NASA, astronauts, US space exploration and were able to have lunch with astronaut Bob Springer who flew two shuttle flights in 1989 and 1990.  Also, they were able to track the progress of the Space Shuttle Endeavor during its finial flight.

 

• Through the use of technology and Skype, students were connected directly to Dr. Atkov, who was in Russia. 

 Both activities and lessons were tied into technology, and students compared Russian space flight with the United States space program.  This also provided an opportunity for students to bridge the international differences of both astronauts and cosmonauts along with the purpose of traveling to the International Space Station.

By Online Staff