Event links students to the real world

By By Clif Knight, Hartselle Enquirer
Hartselle Junior High School’s sixth graders leaped from the classroom to a hands-on study of the real world Oct. 8, as participants in the school’s annual Tabernacle Day.
The field trip, held on the historic Hartselle Tabernacle grounds, unfolded under blue skies and sunshine after it was postponed twice because of rainy weather.
Nine teaching stations were set up to give students a wide range of subjects to study and explore. They rotated from one station to another at 20-minute intervals throughout the day.
A new activity that generated a lot of interest was a show and tell study of rocketry presented by Mike Landers, an aerospace engineer who works for Dynetics in Huntsville. Landers used scale models to describe and illustrate the principals of rocket propulsion and flight and concluded the activity b y firing a pair of rockets —one Alabama red and white and the other Auburn blue and orange— in a nearby field.
Other activities featured and their presenters were: History of the Tabernacle, Rob Cain; Cotton Industry, Eric Shavey; Illegal Drugs, Shannon Hale; Creative Writing, Amanda Key; Field-Expedient Direction Finding, Shane Alexander; Sign Language, Rhonda Nesmith; Making Water Color, Karen Wingenter; and Animal Tracks, Chris Keenum.
The all-day event also featured musical entertainment in the Tabernacle by choral students and a picnic style lunch.