At Lloyd Harbor School, a Space Academy grad

By Tim Healy
tim.healy@newsday.com

When science teacher Kevin Craine returns to the classroom next month at the Lloyd Harbor School in Cold Spring Harbor, he’ll have some new experiences to draw on.

He’s been to the Space Academy.

Craine, who comes from St. James, was part of a class of teachers, just seven from New York State, to participate in the Honeywell Educators Space Academy scholarship program for middle school science and math teachers. He says the chance to gain practical experience drew him to the program at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala.

“Working in the classroom,” he said, “I try to draw on real life connections as much as possible.”

Honeywell, a major contractor in the Space Shuttle program, sponsors teachers for the six-to-eight-day program, which includes 50 hours of serious classroom, laboratory and training time that concentrates on space science and space exploration. Craine said the program included actual astronaut-style training, which some of his classmates found challenging.

“Most of it was not so hard for me,” he said, “but we did a helicopter crash simulation in the water, and some of the others could barely swim.”

Craine was in a June class of 16, with some of his fellow teachers coming from China, Romania and Scotland.

This was not Craine’s first summer picking up real-life experience for the classroom. Last year he traveled to Hawaii under a different program to study sea turtles.

According to a statement from Honeywell, all lessons and activities in the Space Academy program are in sync with national science and math standards and “are ready to use in the classroom.”