By Sherry F. Pruitt

BROOKLAND — Erica Reynolds is a first-year teacher at Brookland Middle School, but she’s already won over her class of sixth-graders.

Reynolds invited the Arkansas Discovery Network of Little Rock to brings its mobile classroom — “Race to Planet ‘X’” — to the Brookland campus for a unique hands-on experience that teaches them Arkansas Frameworks-based space- and science-themed lessons.

The mobile unit has been making trips to Arkansas since school started in August, said Marcus Sims, outreach educator for Arkansas Discovery Network. The traveling exhibit is funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, he added.

The extra-large recreational vehicle parked at the rear of the school so sixth graders could easily access it from their building. Students boarded the stationary vehicle as if it were a fun house on a fair’s midway. Once inside, the fun quickly turned scientific.

The 110 sixth-graders gathered in groups of 18 or so at a time, then paired off. They began working, but in a fun way, at nine to 10 discovery stations, including power station, digital design, aerodynamic testing, ROV command, quake table, oracle, communication station, energy beam, weather station and video inspection.

“Each one is a task or a situation they experience,” Reynolds said.

Sims talked with students before they spent 30 to 40 minutes at the interactive stations. One student from each 2-person team recorded results such as choosing a material and final parameters for a digital design; locating four boulders identified on a grid and plotting additional objects; and recording weather data and tracing the planetary surface.

According to the Arkansas Discovery Network Web site, which gives an idea of what visiting students can expect: “You have been transported into the future to a time when several generations have been living and working in space. A new planet has been discovered at the remote edge of the galaxy revolving around a distant sun. Scientists have dubbed it ‘Planet X.’

“Little is known about the planet, so you and other crew members have been dispatched to gather geologic samples, map the surface and search for signs of life.”

The site describes the experience as a “‘museum on wheels’ with 10 interactive exhibits designed to engage visitors in engineering skills.”

Pupils Emily Smith and Haley Laferney, both on one end of a phone line talking with fellow pupil Lauren Chase, were required to communicate well enough through the receivers to tell Chase how to test and repair fuel cells, they said.

“It touches base on some of the Arkansas Frameworks,” Reynolds said. “They have fun while they are learning. They don’t realize they are learning. That’s also a great benefit of it.”

The teacher said she was researching education materials online when she ran across the Arkansas Discovery Network. The more she learned, the more she felt it would benefit sixth-graders at Brookland.

Reynolds said she “definitely” would invite the Arkansas Discovery Network back to Brookland Middle School.

sherry@jonesborosun.com