2012 December - Michigan Education Association

Blast off!
Kingsford science teacher
ignites students’ imaginations
The Discovery Channel’s “MythBusters” holds a special
place in the heart for science lovers everywhere.
Since 2003, hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage
have thrilled audiences with hundreds of scientific experiments
aimed at answering many of life’s persistent
questions, such as: “How hard is it to find a needle in a
haystack?” “Is yawning contagious?” “Are bulls really aggravated
by the color red?” and “Can you eat a spoonful
of cinnamon without drinking water?”
The show is enough of a pop-culture icon to have
inspired bobblehead dolls of Hyneman and Savage.
Savage’s bobblehead features the bespectacled, goateed
host strapped to a red-and-silver rocket.
The bobblehead doll led chemistry and physics teacher
Bill Bertoldi and his students at Kingsford High School
to recently attempt to answer another nagging question:
“How high will a 16-foot-long rocket fly with Adam
Savage strapped to it?”
A crew from Discovery’s sister network, the Science
Channel, traveled to Penn Yan, N.Y., in July to witness
the Tripoli Rocketry Association’s 31st Annual National
Launch, where rocketeers from across the nation gathered
to launch their unique creations.
Among the rocketeers was Bertoldi, who coordinates
Kingsford’s High Powered Rocketry Program. The
program launched in the 1996-97 school year, as part
of Michigan Technological University’s “Rockets for
Schools” program.
The program’s primary goal is to stimulate greater
academic interest in science, math and technology by
making it as exciting as possible. By building and testing
rockets, students learn critical team-building skills,
increase their knowledge and application of science, and
get to meet professionals in the aerospace and engineering
industries.
“We see a lot of students who come who are not interested
in going into fields like engineering,” Bertoldi says.
“By the time they get done, they’re extremely interested.
That’s very important.”
The after-school program started with eight students
and one rocket. Interest has grown over time, with the
number of annual participants reaching 50 or more,
meeting three times a week. The size of the rockets has
also grown, from a single six-foot rocket kit in 1997, to
17-foot-tall, computer-designed rockets today. Some
rockets built by Bertoldi’s classes can nearly break the
sound barrier.
Bertoldi’s students design rockets with a computer program
called RockSim. With it, they can tweak design elements
to see how size, weight, nose cone configurations
and the placement of fins can all affect rocket flight.
They then apply skills similar to auto-body work in the
actual construction of the rockets, using power tools and
plenty of paint.
After that comes some good old-fashioned engineering
by way of trial-and-error. One example: the Team America
Kingsford High
School science
teacher Bill Bartoldi
and members of
Kingsford’s High
Powered Rocketry
Program pose
with some of their
creations.
MEA VOICE 17