PLUMSTED — Pupils who attend the New Egypt Middle School received a taste of the future when NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) sponsored a visit from a mobile science lab through the auspices of Burlington County College.

“The mobile science lab is part of a $1.5 million grant that was received from NASA,” said Tony DiLemme, project director for the NASA II grant at Burlington County College. “It is actually a portion of what we have been doing over the past two years.”

DiLemme said the program has been promoting science with young people and said that is why NASA gives the money to Burlington County College.

“We want kids to get involved and excited about science and maybe someday they will become a NASA employee or engineer,” DiLemme said. “The first part of the grant involved astronomy and the second part involves programs for kids from K-12, while the third part is about developing sustainable programs for employment on the college level.”

DiLemme said Burlington County College has been involved with the NASA II grant since October 2008.

“We physically received the [mobile lab] unit on Jan. 11, so the New Egypt Middle School is one of the early schools to use it,” he said.

On Jan 29 the mobile science lab arrived at the New Egypt Middle School.

Assistant Principal Jim Osmond said, “We focus on exploring alternative forms of energy in sixth grade, so we wanted to expand on it and reinforce the curriculum with our eighth-graders. We have a responsibility to instill good habits in our graduates.”

Osmond said the middle school staff tries to make learning interesting and fun. He said he believes both of those goals were accomplished with the help of the NASA science lab. The lab offers the students a glimpse into the future with hightech demonstrations and instruction that is related to the state standards for science and alternative energy.

The eighth-grade students were provided hands-on opportunities to work with alternative energy modules related to wind and solar energy, while also getting a tour of the mobile lab.

“Having students build their own solar circuits and wind turbines and seeing the same kinds of systems powering cuttingedge technology on the mobile lab took classroom discussions of alternative energy to the next level,” science teacher Allison Schauer said.

The pupils had an opportunity to test the technologies that have been built into the mobile lab, including some of the newest touch-screen technologies.

Groups of eighth-grade science students spent 20 minutes at each of the different stations in the lab. During each class period, the students explored the mobile lab while also participating in hands-on solar and wind power demonstrations.

Eighth-grader Tori Axi said, “This is awesome. I could have stayed on that bus [mobile lab] all day.”

Eighth-grader Payge Hardy said the hands-on experiments were creative and said the activities were very interesting.

Eighth-grader Natalie Del Sontro said green technologies are not only good for the nation’s future, she said it was fun to learn about them.