Debby Haynes

Wanting to link literacy and science, Haynes came up with a unique interdisciplinary program, " Reading and Rocketing through October Sky," to improve student learning in English and science through hands-on activity. In their English classes, six th-grade students will read October Sky by Homer Hickman about students who get college scholarships and later become engineers after building a rocket. In science, the students will study aeronautics and build and launch their own rockets. The literary objectives are to increase the students' vocabulary and their ability to understand difficult concepts through context clues, which will help them enjoy more books. The science objectives are to improve their opinions about math and science and to increase their knowledge of aeronautics, engineering and graphing. Haynes, a resident of Kansas City, ultimately hopes the program will expand students' knowledge of the many career choices they have and encourage more of them to pursue careers in a math or science related field.