Cosgrove at the Space and Rocket
Center in Huntsville, Alabama
South Charleston Middle School Teacher Dan Cosgrove from Chloe, WV participated in Space Academy For Educators, an intense curriculum incorporating aerospace technology, recent findings from space exploration, and innovative pedagogies for enhancing classroom teaching effectiveness to improve student understanding and retention of basic mathematics operations and sciences principles.
Honeywell awarded scholarships to 200 teachers from 19 countries and 43 U.S. states to attend the Honeywell Educators at Space Academy program from June 16 to June 28, 2006 at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Cosgrove was the only teacher selected from West Virginia.
The global group of teachers completed an intensive educator curriculum focused on space science and exploration in addition to participating in real-life astronaut training. Each Honeywell Educator was awarded the prestigious scholarship following a rigorous application and selection process involving nearly 1,000 competing teachers.
"The Honeywell Educators at Space Academy program is designed to help teachers inspire the next generation to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math," said Tom Buckmaster, President, Honeywell Hometown Solutions. "Honeywell is committed to providing students and teachers with programs, experiences and resources that bring science to life in memorable, life-changing ways."
Cosgrove (center) with fellow teacher from Romania
During the program each Honeywell Educator participated in a variety of activities including 40 hours of classroom, laboratory and field training. They also had the unique opportunity to participate in astronaut training exercises including a high-performance jet simulation, scenario-based space missions, land and water survival training, and state-of-the-art flight dynamics programs.
"We are very grateful for the generous support we receive from Honeywell, a leading partner of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center," said Larry Capps, Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. "Thanks to Honeywell, teachers from around the world will come together to learn activities that they can take back and implement in their classrooms."
Cosgrove hopes to bring many aspects of the program to his classroom and possibly within his community. His goal is to bring a group of students to the Space and Rocket Center's well know Space Camp. Of interest, while Cosgrove was attending the program, Tom Hank's son was also attending Space Camp at the facility.
Cosgrove with Story Musgrave (left),
veteran of the NASA space program for
thirty years and astronaut on six space shuttle flights
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