Students soar to new heights at aviation museum workshops

What goes up must come down.

That is a lesson Ashburton Intermediate School students have been learning recently.

After a hiatus due to Covid, popular science lessons for school students at Ashburton Aviation Museum have returned.

All of the intermediate students visited in groups over eight days this month.

Courtesy of the museum’s volunteers, they have learned about weather, wind, how planes fly, navigation, and how to launch rockets into outer space.

The highlight for many was the latter.

Four lucky students each day lined up to pull a string that, with the aid of an air compressor, launched the ‘‘rocket’’, which was a plastic bottle filled with water.

At one of the launches, students let out gasps as the rocket soared skyward.

It reached a height of about 5m as water rained down from the rocket before it landed near the launch site.

All resources for the lessons including the rocket were made by museum volunteers.

‘‘It was a weird feeling launching the rocket, it was fun though,’’ student Aiamahsea Skoczek said.

There were six stations set up at the museum for the students to visit in groups.

At the weather station, Justin Rolston was among students experimenting with ‘‘a tornado’’.

‘‘The tornado was made by swirling water from one bottle to another, creating a vortex,’’ Justin explained.

Museum volunteer and programme co-ordinator Dennis Swaney said the station also included an activity where blue blocks of ice were put at one end of tank of hot water.

‘‘As they melt, they created a visual demonstration of a weather front,’’ Dennis said.

Students used wheels, a vacuum cleaner, golf and ping pong balls to learn about wind.

The remaining stations included one dedicated to flying and another to navigation.

By Dellwyn Moylan