Bulletin E-Edition:
Kids’ rockets fly sky high
One Ponderosa teacher incorporates his love for science in a class project
By Scott Hammers / The Bulletin
Published: November 18. 2009 4:00AM PST
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Fourth-grade teacher Jeremy Hought instructs Haley Christian, 9, left, and Celina Anaya, 9, right, how to operate a rocket launcher Monday at Ponderosa Elementary School in Bend.
Photos by Scott Hammers / The Bulletin
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With a pop, all eyes looked up at Ponderosa Elementary School in Bend on Monday, watching intently as a brightly painted rocket built from a 2-liter soda bottle shot a few hundred feet into the sky. Near the top of the rocket’s flight, the wind caught it, sending it clumsily tumbling end over end toward the spectators gathered near the playground.
Pandemonium erupted as more than 100 students screamed and took off running in all directions to avoid the incoming missile.
“Whoa! My god! Are you trying to kill us?” shouted J.J. Combs, 9, moments after his classmate’s rocket landed with a soft thud near the swing set.
The project is the creation of Jeremy Hought, a fourth-grade teacher at Ponderosa. He said the rockets are a fun way to teach his students introductory physics concepts, including mechanical, potential and kinetic energy, gravity and aerodynamics.
Later in the year, they’ll build mousetrap-powered cars, and parachute capsules to return an egg launched on a water rocket back to earth safely.
Hought started teaching his students to build rockets three years ago at Jewell Elementary School, then brought the project with him when he transferred to Ponderosa last year.
“I just love science. I started looking on the Net for science experiments that were frugal and cheap, and I saw this high school teacher doing this,” Hought said. “I thought, ‘That’s great, how come we can’t do this?’”
Other than losing an occasional rocket in a tall tree or a neighbor’s fenced yard, the rocket unit has been largely trouble-free for three years, he said.
Not that the students don’t enjoy the occasional mishap.
Taylor Bennett, 9, giggled while cradling her rocket painted to look like a flying pig and recounting its flight earlier in the day.
“My rocket hit a little girl in the head,” Taylor said, adding that the victim, a kindergartener, was unhurt.
Bennett was one of several students to put a lot of effort into decorating their rockets. One rocket featured a transparent nose cone stuffed with colorful feathers, while another trailed ribbon streamers as it flew.
Braden Desmaris, 9, built a classic NASA-style design covered with reflective silver tape and “U.S.A.” printed on its side, while 9-year-old Larissa Shores’ “U.S.A. Rocket” featured a drawing of teen performer Miley Cyrus.
The “History Rocket,” built by James Ravich, 10, was decorated with portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. James said he’d tried to pay close attention to the concepts he’d been taught in class while building the rocket.
“We learned how the fins have to be at a certain kind of angle to fly right and not spin out of control,” he said.
Alex Thus, 10, said he’d tried to keep his design as simple as possible to save weight.
“When it’s lighter, it’s more likely to go up because the gravity won’t push it down as much,” he said.
Water rockets work by adding a small amount of water to an inverted 2-liter bottle. The bottle’s opening is fitted to a length of PVC pipe, and a bicycle pump is used to pressurize the empty space above the water. When the seal between the bottle and the pipe is broken, the water is forced out of the opening, sending the rocket skyward.
According to the Water Rocket Achievement World Record Association Web site, water rockets have flown as high as 2,000 feet.
Scott Hammers can be reached at541-383-0387 or at shammers@bendbulletin.com.
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