Lynn Camp teacher attends Space Camp during summer break

Like other teachers, Lynn Camp Science Teacher Melinda Brock spent part of her summer vacation working on professional development.

Brock’s professional development involved zip lining backwards into water and other astronaut training. She ran a variety of space mission scenarios and had dinner underneath a full-sized Saturn V rocket with actual NASA members at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Brock was one of more than 200 teachers from across the U.S. and around the world selected to spend a week at the camp as part of the Honeywell Educators at Space Academy Program.

"It was awesome," Brock said of the experience. "We learned a lot about rockets and the history of space exploration."

Among the people Brock had the opportunity to meet was Ed Buckley, who was instrumental in NASA’s tracking and data acquisition systems in the 1960s and later became assistant director for spaceflight operations.

"We learned it was a lot of trial and error, which is something we can teach the kids about" Brock said of the early space program. "You may not have all the answers all at once and that is okay. You keep trying."

In addition to the experience, Brock said the teachers received a series of lesson plans to incorporate into their classroom for various projects such as a star dome.

"It is something that can be made with items you can purchase at Lowe’s," Brock said.

A lot of it is cross curriculum material that can be used for any subject," she added.

Anyone listening to the news may think NASA is at a standstill because of budget cuts. Brock said NASA officials showed that is not the case. The teachers were updated on various missions including the Mars rovers, deep space probes such as Voyager and  the NEEMO underwater mission off of the Florida Keys.

"We had an email uplink with NEEMO," Brock said.

A third Mars rover, "Curiosity," is scheduled to touch down on Mars in August.

Brock said NASA officials are doing more so that students can keep up with the rover as it travels toward Mars and its progress once it lands.

"I’m really amazed with how much NASA is sharing," Brock said. "They want the kids to know and keep in touch with what is going on. The space program will depend on these kids and they understand that."

With that help, Brock said she hopes to inspire her students to reach for the stars, whether that involves working at NASA, Hollywood, Harvard or even the White House.

"You will have a student who doesn’t like math, or science or whatever," Brock said. "You can take something like rockets that maybe they are interested in and get excited about and explain, ‘If you can do this, you can do that,’" Brock said. "If they feel like they can succeed, they are going to go a whole lot further."