National Air and Space Museum Kickoff Event!

by Max

Today, December 11, 2008, the Stuart-Hobson eighth grade went to the National Air and Space Museum. The reason we went there is because Stuart-Hobson has a partnership with the Aero Club and the National Air and Space Museum. The school has had this partnership for seven years. We got there by buses. The buses were comfortable and the bus ride was about fifteen minutes. Our homeroom had our own bus.

We had very special speaker named Dik Daso. He is a retired pilot. He told us that we probably won't be who we think we will be when we grow up. He also told us that we should put our family first. He told us one more thing. He told us that we should always be nice to people. He was very emotional when he was talking about his family and he started crying. That showed us that he loves his family very much.

We also saw a movie called 'To Fly' in the IMAX movie theater. I learned that flying began with a hot air balloon. Then I saw a NASA rocket take off. One of the other things I liked were the fighter planes called Blue Angels. They are gray color when they are used in the War in Iraq. But they are also used in air show. They are blue and yellow color when they perform in air shows. They perform stunts that I call the diamond and side by side barrel roll.

Then we went to the gallery called how things fly. There I saw the balloon that was floating in the air. That represented the first flight. There was also a plane that we could sit in an steer the rudder. There was also a machine that used magnet power to move metal things. Many people were interested in the plane and the metal magnet movement.

I thought that the movie was fun but the gallery was kind of boring. I learned a lot about space and flight. I really want to go to the museum again and see the rest of the museum. I rally hope that the next time I go there, won't be the photographer that was flashing in our faces the whole time Dik was talking. I also think that the gallery should be updated and the airplane should be a fighter jet. I hope that our school will be partners with the Aero Club for many more years. Thank you for the great experience.


By Andre

We went to the National Air and Space Museum on December 11, 2008. The people that went were the 8th grade teachers and the 8th graders unless you were absent.

We went because we have a partnership with the National Air and Space Museum and the Aero Club. We also went to learn about flying and space air craft it was fun for a first event for the partnership.

Our speaker's name is Dick Daso. He was an emotional speaker and I thought he was okay. From his speech I learned that it will take you along time to know what you want to be. You should always put your family first and he talked a lot about different planes.

The IMAX movie was fun. I enjoyed how the man flew from different places in his hot air balloon. It was funny when the man and the lady were about to kiss and he flew over the sun and covered the sun light. Other sections that I enjoyed in the movie was when they started showing the different planes that came out year after year they were very fancy and I looked like they were not safe.

When we were in the how things fly section I payed a lot of attention to which of the objects that create less drag. Another question that they asked but in a different section was about the pressure of the airplane. The question was: how does air pressure lift an airplane wing? I said that you have to notice the shape of the wing; the upper was more curved than the lower surface. The curved upper surface constricts the flow of air more than the flatter lower surface causing the air above the wing to speed up.

But overall the trip was fun. Both going and leaving my homeroom had our own bus and I had my own seat. Now something that made me upset was the camera guy, because he just kept taking pictures of the same people and things. There aren’t that many improvements that I think there should have been for the museum but I would have like to seen an airplane take off!



By Jophnee

Today students from our school went to the National Air and Space Museum. When we first arrived at the museum we waited for them to prepare the theater for us.

Before we watched the movie, we met the curator of the Modern Military exhibit at the Air and Space Museum. His name is Dik Daso. He attended the Air Force Academy. Later he earned his Masters in history. His interests are music and just hanging out with his family. As a child he never thought he would become an curator or even have an interest in planes.

Then we watched "To Fly." The movie talked about how mankind figured out that not only birds can fly but humans too. It also told us how the universe not only stops here but it goes beyond what we can ever imagine.

After the movie we went to the exhibits and observed what we had never seen before. We did some hands on games and read about gravity and what makes things fly.