LIHU‘E — Oceanit Laboratories, an engineering company, ended a successful school-year-long Adopt-a-School relationship with teachers, students and parents at Wilcox Elementary School by hosting fifth-grade students and parents to a night of indoor rocketry and outdoor stargazing. Mary Lu Kelley
LIHU‘E — Oceanit Laboratories, an engineering company, ended a successful school-year-long Adopt-a-School relationship with teachers, students and parents at Wilcox Elementary School by hosting fifth-grade students and parents to a night of indoor rocketry and outdoor stargazing.
Mary Lu Kelley of Oceanit, who also doubles as the Adopt-a-School coordinator for the Central District, brought over three of her firm’s engineers, Jeff Buck, Basil Scott, and Randy Wolfshagen, who headed up groups for the various activities planned for the night.
The program culminated a four-part series on astronomy for the fifth graders, who have been working with Oceanit Laboratories engineers on the project, the earlier sessions dealing with an over-view of astronomy and advancing to more detailed discussions on the optics used in viewing the heavenly bodies.
Following a presentation of gifts of a dozen telescopes to the school’s fifth-grade teachers, the group engaged in a slide-show presentation on astronomy, while the other half engaged in hands-on activities led by the Oceanit engineers.
These involved construction of mood patches as well as an Alka-Seltzer rocket-launching session, which served as an exciting prelude to the outdoor session, with members of Kaua‘i’s astronomy group, KEASA (Kauai Educational Association for Science and Astronomy), who brought out two special telescopes so students and parents could get close-up looks at the moon, Jupiter and, in the early period, Saturn.
Utilizing plastic film canisters and some paper cutouts, rockets were quickly formed, and students and parents alike squealed with glee as their rockets popped aloft inside the cafeteria.
Kelley noted that, earlier in the year, the firm had performed other projects with the other grades in the school, the year culminating with the stargazing event.
Kelley said that, for students in grades kindergarten through two, a family science night closed off that study unit in October.
Third graders completed a study on desalinization, a topic that is currently in the news in Kona, and fourth graders worked on ciguaterra poisoning. Scientists at Oceanit have come up with a kit to test reef fish for the presence of ciguaterra, and are working on a test to detect the presence of leptospirosis in island fresh water. This Thursday Oceanit and Wilcox School representatives will join other firms and schools as they celebrate the second annual Team Tech, Kaua‘i: Adopt-a-School program at the Kaua‘i War Memorial Convention Hall in Lihu‘e.
This event allows everyone an opportunity to see the accomplishments made by the partnership between leaders of companies dealing with high technology and the schools.
It also allows County of Kaua‘i leaders an opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of Kaua‘i’s privateindustry partners, while celebrating the accomplishments of the partnerships with schools, and provide a venue to plan programs for the coming year, according to a county spokesperson.
- Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@pulitzer.net.
