Mourat Tchoshanov

Rocket project to stimulate interest in science and mathematics

This paper presents an educational outreach activity that utilizes rockets to stimulate interest in science and mathematics for high school students. This activity involves predominantly underrepresented minority students at three high schools in the city of El Paso. In addition to sewing high school students, this project seeks to help train pre-service and in-sewice teachers in ways to stimulate science and mathematics education through a rigorous inquiry-based project. For students. the primary objective of the rocket mission is to learn ahout the forces and effects influencing the flight of the rocket. The payload used in the rocket flight is a self-contained, computer-controlled sensor and data acquisition system. Teams of students participate in activities that involve constructing the rocket and its payload, launching and recovering the rocket, and analyzing the flight data. Each team is assisted throughout the process by a pre-service teacher and an in-service teacher.