What goes up must come down.
That's a lesson students at Ashburton Intermediate School have learned lately.
After a hiatus due to Covid, popular science lessons for school pupils have returned at Ashburton Aviation Museum.
All intermediate students visited in groups for eight days this month.
Thanks to the museum's volunteers, they learned about weather, wind, how planes fly, navigation and how to launch rockets into space.
The highlight for many was the latter.
Each day, four lucky students lined up to pull a string that, using an air compressor, launched the ''rocket,'' a plastic bottle filled with water.
At one of the launches, students gasped as the rocket flew into the sky.
It reached a height of about 5 meters as water rained from the rocket before it landed near the launch site.
All aids for the lessons including the rocket were made by museum volunteers.
“It was a weird feeling launching the rocket, but it was fun,” said student Aiamahsea Skoczek.
There were six stations set up in the museum that students could visit in groups.
At the weather station, Justin Rolston was one of the students experimenting with “a tornado.”
“The tornado was caused by swirling water from one bottle to another, creating a vortex,” Justin explained.
Museum volunteer and program coordinator Dennis Swaney said the station also included an activity where blue ice blocks were placed at one end of the hot water tank.
“As they melted, they created a visual demonstration of a weather front,” Dennis said.
Students used wheels, a vacuum cleaner, golf and ping pong balls to learn about wind.
The remaining stations include one for flying and one for navigation.
By Dellwyn Moylan