Pikeville High students participate in "e-mission"

Appalachian News-Express
Staff Writer, Emily Burton

Imagine this: A volcano is erupting on the Caribbean Island of Montserrat and thousands of people must be evacuated. Volcanic rock and ash are raining down on the island, while lava creeps toward cities and towns. At the same time, a massive hurricane is bearing down on the island. Roads are two-lanes, boat traffic and air traffic are halted and evacuating 13,000 people isn’t easy. A shuttle launch has sent astronauts into space to repair a satellite from which you desperately need information to aid in tracking both the volcanic eruption and the hurricane. The question is what do you do now?

That was the choice laid before students in Cindy Stuart’s class at Pikeville Independent High School, Wednesday as they participated in “Operation Montserrat.”

The program is part of educational “e-missions” run by the Challenger Learning Center. This mission was run cooperatively by the centers in Paducah and Hazard.

As part of the program students communicates with a Flight Director in Paducah via SKYPE technology. The students were divided up into several teams: Hurricane team, Evacuation team and Communications team. SKYPE is a Luxembourg based subsidiary of E-Bay which allows people to talk using video and voice communications through the Internet.

The mission simulates events that actually happened to the island of Montserrat in the mid-1900’s. Montserrat is a British Territory part of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. The tiny island is 10 miles long and 7 miles wide. In 1995 the previously dormant Soufriere Hills volcano erupted and continues to erupt today. The 1995 eruption destroyed the capital city and airport, and rendered half of the island uninhabitable. The estimated population of the island often called, “the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean,” for its verdant beauty and Irish heritage, was 13,000. After the eruption the population was estimated at slightly more than 4,800 people. Meaning of the thousands evacuated about 8,000 people have not returned to the island, because their homes were destroyed and there is no place now to re-build them.

In 1989 Hurricane Hugo a Category 5 hurricane, slammed into the island and destroyed more than 90-percent of all buildings on the island. It also was estimated to have killed 22 people, decimated the population of a species of bat native to the island, pushing them near the brink of extension and caused property damage estimated to be between $100 and $300 million.

Operation Montserrat teaches children not only about science and math, but also history, social studies, communication and teamwork and blends many disciplines into on e lesson.

Students participated in four separate sessions Wednesday and Thursday. The total cost for all four sessions is about $2,000 Stuart said. The school received a partial sponsorship from Southeast Telephone and Total Pharmacy Care. The district paid for the remaining cost of the program.

Stuart said that the idea to hold the program was, “the brainchild of former Instructional Supervisor Jane Campbell.”

The students received data in real-time from the Challenger Center about the hurricane and the eruption. This data is simulated, but is based upon the past two disasters to affect the island.

There are three scenarios that could happen as part of the program, just the volcano erupts, just the hurricane hits the island, or worst-cast, both devastate Montserrat.

Students at the school Wednesday had to cope and respond to the first scenario.

Stuart said she was, “Really excites,” about the program. “It’s something different, it takes a real scenario approach to it.” The students spent a month preparing for the mission.

Students waited anxiously for data to start pouring in. A large video screen held the image of the flight director in Paducah, who communicated to all the teams directly. Beside of this was a second screen on which a DVD played images of NASA mission control and the launch of the space shuttle Columbia, whose astronauts in this scenario are heading into space to repair a Low Earth Orbit satellite. This satellite provides meteorological data about the island of Montserrat and is vital to the success of the mission. Students must respond to the data provided by mission control. And determine the hurricane’s path. Will it strike the island, with how much force, what will damages likely be? They also must respond to data about the volcanic eruption, how much lava and ash will there be, how much rock fall will there be? This data is passed from Mission Command at the high school. To the Volcano and Hurricane teams. Once they process the data, Communication team members relay this data to the Evacuation team, who must then decide when and how to evacuate the residents of Montserrat. Not only must the students determine the event’s human effect, but the effect the disasters will have on plant and animal life on the island.

Stuart said that for the mission performed Wednesday afternoon, the hurricane missed the island, but some heavy wind and rain were reported. The volcano did erupt and all residents were safely evacuated, although there were some who suffered minor injuries.

As the students engaged in the mission, they looked intent and focused, teamwork was key as they communicated with each other, not only in their individual teams, but as a class to make the mission a success.

“they did a great job,” Stuart said. The missions were, “the culmination of a lot of hard work, they had a lot of fun.”

To prep for the mission, Stuart said students studied volcanoes, earthquakes and hurricanes, and will take a day to follow-up on the results of their mission.

The mission, she said, “gives students an opportunity to make the connection between all area… to see the different subject areas.” Not only did the students study scientific data, but also had to use math as a part of the lesson, by graphing and understanding latitude and longitude. Students also had to use mathematical instruments and modern technology to help complete the missions.

The eighth grade Humanities class, Stuart said, even designed a mission patch to celebrate the event.

Students, “get to see the relationship between textbooks and the real works,” by participating in Operation Montserrat, Stuart said. The program helps students become “scientifically literate world citizens,” Stuart said.

The Challenger Center is a non-profit organization which is not part of NASA. On January 28, 1986, about 73 seconds after lift-off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the space shuttle Challenger disintegrated, killing all seven astronauts aboard. One the shuttle that day, was science teacher, Christa McAuliffe. The overall mission of the Challenge was promote the advancement of scientific knowledge, chording to the Challenger Learning Center’s websites.

To continue that mission, family members of the shuttle’s crew, formed the Challenger Learning Center in Houston, TX. Now, there are 50 learning centers in the United States, Canada and England. Two of those are in Kentucky in Paducah, and Hazard. The mission of these centers “is to improve the quality of science, math and technology education by providing opportunities for all in our region to participate in quality real-life experiences, attain knowledge and become lifelong learners.”