Concord Intermediate students launch rockets

CLAYTON SIDENBENDER, The Elkhart Truth, Ind.
·2 min read

ELKHART — Holland Rowe, a fifth-grade student at Concord Intermediate School (CIS), surprised herself with how high her rocket flew.

“It kind of takes a long time to prepare,” Rowe said. “I expected that we build it and then launch it the next day, instead it was different.”

But the wait was worth it for her. Her rocket launched about 150 feet in the air and came right back down to the ground.

The rocket launch was part of a Rocket Day for the fifth-grade students at CIS. It took place on the practice fields behind Concord High School and featured an assortment of activities.

“Today, I planned out basically a field day for the fifth-graders,” said Ryan Prahl, science teacher at CIS. “They go from four rotations: rocket launching, over to water relays, then they go into the gym and do some activities … and then the last thing they do is iPad games.”

The rocket experiment is a five-week project that the students completed in Prahl’s science class. The students could make the rocket their own by selecting the type of fin, the number of fins, the color of streamers and decorate the rocket however they wanted.

The base and fins were made of wood. The top of the rocket was made of plastic and a string was attached to the inside, so that when the rocket launched, the students could see which rocket was their own.

Prahl has been overseeing this project for 11 years. They did not launch rockets during the 2020 and 2021 school years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“One year we ended early so we couldn’t do the rocket launch even though they built the rockets,” Prahl said. “They just took them home. Then the second year, we didn’t build them because we were going into classrooms, instead of them coming to me.”

Over 400 rockets were launched over the course of two-two event on Wednesday and Thursday. On Thursday alone, over 230 rockets launched. The reason they could not launch all the rockets in one day is that there were many students to get through.

Prahl said the whole experience gave the students much to learn and have fun. Some students were mesmerized by the launching rockets.

“Really cool, but I wonder if a bird got hit,” said Andres Batista Hernandez, a fifth-grade student in teacher Aimee Shears’ class.