BY KAREN BOSSICK
Hemingway STEAM tech teacher Scott Slonim is about to experience LiftOff, although one could say he’s already on Cloud 9.
Slonim has been accepted to the LiftOff Summer Institute: 2025: Flight Path to Innovation in Houston, Texas, June 23-27. The prestigious program is hosted by NASA’s Texas Space Grant consortium and provides teachers with hands-on training, behind-the-scenes access to space exploration facilities and expert-led sessions.
“I will be taught by scientists and engineers at the forefront of space exploration!” he said. “I can’t wait to bring back what I learn and teach other teachers and my students. This should significantly increase my teachings in the Star Lab!”
Slonim will join outstanding Grade 5-12 STEM educators from across the country, with Idaho Space Grant Consortium footing his $1,250 registration fee, including hotel, meals, tours and local transportation.
Slonim is in his 20th year teaching kindergarten through fifth grade in his engineering design room Hemingway school in Ketchum.
In his classroom behind the school gym, his students study stars and planets, build magnetic levitation trains that float across the room, create their own virtual reality games that they play on oculus Quest 2 and learn robotic coding with Dash, creating their own robots and building them with flashing LED lights
They start learning rocketry in kindergarten, building bottle rockets, and end up building solid fuel rockets that go 250 feet in the air and come down with a parachute by fifth grade.
He often adapts lessons meant for older students for younger ones.
“They’re pretty amazing engineers that do some pretty amazing things,” Slonim said.
Slonim got a grant through the Wood River Women’s Foundation for a portable Star Lab which he uses in the classroom and at local libraries to introduce children to the ways in which Native American used stars in their daily lives and the constellations. Each lab session ends with the opportunity for children to hold a meteorite in their hands.
Slonim told LiftOff in his application that his school is located in the nation’s first dark sky reserve and that Ketchum is an official International Dark Sky Community so he feels incumbent to teach his students about protecting skies from light pollution.
This year’s LiftOff will focus on groundbreaking NASA research and cutting-edge technologies that make space exploration possible. Among them, NASA’s supersonic aircraft, the X-59, which paves the way for faster, quieter air travel and will reshape commercial air travel on Earth, contributing to a more eco-efficient future for transportation.
Educators will also learn about innovations in Low Earth Orbit that contribute to our understanding of things from Earth’s climate to the development of deep space life-support systems.
Slonim said he can’t wait to share what he learns with his students and other Blaine County School District teachers.
“I am thrilled and honored to attend this institute,” said Slonim. “We are always learning new things about space, and it will be fascinating to hear from professionals at the forefront of space exploration.”