Nasa Space Center

Our next field trip was to the NASA Space Center in Houston.  Elizabeth was in heaven, this was her dream to come here, as she is planning on being an astronaut when she is older. We spent the entire day here.  It was a hot day outside, so we arrived early, so that we could take the tram ride and do the outdoor events before the heat really hit.

The tram ride take you from the visitors center, under the highway, to the actual space center where mission control and all the support units are located. As odd as it seemed, in the middle of all this high tech fly to the moon landscape, is a herd of cattle, or "space cattle" as we dubbed them.

Mock up inside mission control

The local FFA chapter keeps cattle on the NASA grounds.  They work with NASA and the cattle doing "special projects" ....or maybe, they are alien cows?????

 The tram tour takes you around several buildings, cows, and then you make a stop and go into Mission Control.  We spent quite a bit of time in this area.  They have mock ups of all sorts of parts of the space shuttle and the space station.  If anything goes wrong in space, they can recreate it here at the space center so that they can talk the astronauts through the repair process.  

 

mock up of a door and its lock inside mission control

We also visited the many theaters they have at the space center, showing various movies and the history of space flight.  We were here visiting for 6 hours, and the girls earned 6 hours of science for our homeschooling  for our time here.

NASA also has free curriculum for teachers and homeschoolers, which I signed up to receive.

Our Texas Vacation...

Piece of the Twin Towers

We just got back from our Texas vacation a few days ago. My husbands employer often sends him down to go to the fire school at Texas A&M, and this year, the girls and I tagged along. His classes were at College Station, so the first few days we hung around there and the girls and I entertained ourselves while he was in class. The hotel had a pool, so that was a huge plus, as it was on the warm side.

One afternoon we visited Veterans Park in Bryan. That is a park worth spending the day at. We were there for around 4 hours, and I have given the girls 4 hours of American History. In addition to the usual ball fields, the park also features a 'history walk'. It is a sidewalk that starts with the beginning of America, and ends at present day. If you follow the walk in order, you visit and learn all about our great country and its wars, achievements, inventions, and famous persons. The sidewalk has bricks in in that every few feet feature a different year, and tell what happened that year. Along the sides of the sidewalk, are statues and placards that tell of other events in that at same time frame. This park also features the Texas Wall of all fallen soldiers from the state of Texas, as well as a large piece of the twin towers. This is a park you definitely want to visit, and talk a sack lunch and drink with you--you will be there several hours to see it all.