WMS 7th and 8th grade teacher, Mr.Olvesen is working on a rocket building and launching project with WMS 7th grade STEM students.

Mr.Olvesen and his 7th graders started building rockets in the beginning of the semester and are trying to make them go a long distance. Mr.Olvesen states, “Rockets were always fun and each class has always gotten better each year. I see the mistakes that were made and work on it with the next class.”

This was the first year that Mr. Olvesen used technology to simulate the rockets before building them. Mr. Olvesen offered the rocket building program to students because “you have the concept of both engineering and building it yourself.” He always had an interest in science growing up, but in his second year of college, he wanted to become a science teacher.

7th grade student Samuel Tuju was interested in Mr. Olvesen’s STEM class because he wanted a new experience in building rockets and seeing what it’s like. Tuju stated “I like this program because Mr. Olvesen gives you freedom to build things yourself.” Sydney De Voogd also included “I like the science and space side of it.” De Voogd was inspired to join the STEM program because her father was a science teacher also, she has been to the NASA workshop and was became interested sc