Student News

Space Camp 2019

Six students accompanied by Mr Leslie departed Australia bound for the USA late last year. The trip was a science-themed study tour and St. Joseph’s was joined by staff and students from Moama Grammar and Echuca College.

Orlando, Florida, was the first destination. Home of the famous Cape Canaveral – NASA’s rocket building and testing facility. The team spent three days on-site. During this time they had lunch with an astronaut, completed ATX (astronaut training experience) and through the use of simulators, travelled and performed missions on Mars. They also viewed many artefacts from the last 70 years of space travel, including getting up close and personal with the Atlantis space shuttle. Three days was not enough at NASA – if you ever go yourself, book for a week.

The next leg of the journey took the crew to San Francisco where they boarded the USS Hornet – a WWII era air craft carrier. The vessel now acts as a floating museum. Veterans from the Vietnam War showed the group around the ship. Most notable were the torpedo rooms, flight deck (with many ex-service planes), bridge and the radar room. The day finished with a brisk walk across a nearly completely fogged-in Golden Gate Bridge.

The Californian Academy of Sciences was next on the list and is one of the few places you can visit that hosts an aquarium, planetarium and natural history museum all in one place. Tom Hanks narrated a journey through our universe in the planetarium, helping us understand just how big space is (and how small Earth is in comparison).

Another trip at 30,000ft took the group south to Las Angeles. Knox Berry Farm resort was base camp whilst in LA. The site boasts one of the best roller coaster parks in the US. Naturally, the group spent a day discovering how physics relates to roller coaster design – both in theory and practice.

The final two days of the trip were spent at Disney Land and Universal Studios.