Berwick teacher heading back to NASA event

Berwick Junior High School teacher Rose Hale plans to blast off again, exploring more about space during the LiftOff Summer Institute program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The program will be June 26-July 1.

LiftOff’s workshops are organized around an aerospace or space science theme drawn from NASA’s diverse engineering and scientific research programs. It is a nationally competitive program for educators.

The theme for 2016 is Exploration: Past, Present and Future.

“I’m thrilled to have one of St. Mary Parish’s finest teachers selected to participate in such a prestigious program,” said Susan Price, St. Mary Parish Schools science program manager.

“Mrs. Hale has spent many of her summers participating in local, state, and national science professional development programs.”

“It’s going to be an awesome experience for her,” said Berwick Junior High Principal Tim Hymel. “It’s going to also impact our students because she’s going to be able to come back and share the information she learns over there.”

Hale, eighth-grade science teacher, has been teaching 5½ years. Her first LiftOff institute mission began in 2011 after completing only six months of teaching.

At the urging of Price, Hale applied to the program.

“I had only been teaching for six months then, and I was thinking ‘Oh, I’ll never get in but I’ll do it.’ Sure enough, I got accepted. And I was so excited to go.”

“She loves science,” Price said. “Her love of science is exemplified in her classroom. And she gets her students excited about science.”

The first experience was great as a new teacher attending field trips, meet-and-greets with NASA scientists, and engaging hands-on activities.

“When you go the first time, you’re so overwhelmed with the whole aura of Johnson Space Center,” Hale said.

“It’s so historical and there’s so much going on … that you start to lose the details on-site because you’re so overwhelmed by the atmosphere.”

When the application window opened this year, Hale applied to see if she could return to the program. She was accepted.

“I’m hoping this time I can look at it with a keener eye,” Hale said, “and get more out of it and bring new stuff back to my classroom and the district.”

“It’s a great opportunity for her to educate herself,” Hymel said. “I mean, not that many teachers get that opportunity to go to NASA being on the side of engineers responsible for those missions in space.”

Hale’s excitement also stems from being among 54 additional educators sharing lessons and ideas.

“It’s inspiring to be able to see other teachers get excited about something,” Hale said.

The eighth-grade science curriculum includes a space unit, which takes six to eight weeks to teach. Lessons cover topics from the solar system to space exploration.

Conversations really flow with students once they discover their teacher has been in the same mission control room that monitored the Apollo 11 mission.

“I’ve been in that room, in that mission control room,” Hale said. “You show them pictures. And they get inspired. It’s like a snowball effect. You get inspired by these people. And you get to inspire the kids when you come back.”

When students start learning about space they start realizing how big space is and what is going on out there, Hale said.

“It’s so much more than just memorizing the order of the planets,” Hale said. “It just blows your mind. … They get so interested in it that they want to learn more and more.”

Hale was a general studies major at Nicholls State University and has an associate degree in public relations. She is certified to teach science grades 6 through 12.

“I’ve never wanted to be an astronaut,” Hale said. “I’ve always been a ‘feet firmly on the ground’ kind of girl. It’s so much unknown that you can’t help but wonder about it. I always knew I wanted to be a teacher but it kind of took a segue .

Hale comes from a family of educators. Her father, Keith Thibodeaux, retired as St. Mary Parish assistant superintendent.

“I have probably like 11 or 12 teachers in the family,” Hale said. “It’s kind of like the family business, if you will.”

The Louisiana Space Grant is sponsoring Hale as a participant in the LiftOff program. It costs approximately $650 and all expenses are paid. Fifty-five educators across the nation were selected to participate

“I’m so happy for her because she’s really a great teacher,” Price said. “She takes everything that she learns in these workshops and implements it in her classroom. And it’s all about the kids. She does everything for the kids.”