6th-grade teacher will use his space-camp stint to launch science careers

David DiMatties' bright-blue space-flight suit wasn't the typical attire for Margate.

But the sixth-grade teacher wore it anyway.

"I took my space uniform down the Shore to show it off," DiMatties, 35, recalled, laughing. "And a neighbor walked by and said congratulations, like I had just landed on the moon or something."

DiMatties, a math teacher at Alternative Middle Years at James Martin School in Port Richmond, hadn't landed on the moon, but came closer to experiencing space travel than even he could have imagined.

For a week in June, DiMatties attended camp at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., where he and 287 other teachers from 16 countries underwent astronaut training to sharpen their math- and science-teaching skills and later apply in their classrooms what they had learned.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," said DiMatties, the only Philadelphia teacher to attend and one of eight selected from Pennsylvania. "Space camp is something that as a child you're always wanting to do."

The space-flight suit, he said, was an added benefit.

The 5-year-old space program, "Honeywell Educators @ Space Academy," is sponsored by Honeywell, a global technology and manufacturing leader with a commitment to math and science education, said spokeswoman Lisa Higgins.

DiMatties was selected from a pool of 1,200 applicants for this year's program, Higgins said.

The weeklong annual scholarship program, in which Honeywell covers all expenses, is designed to help teachers inspire students to become the world's next scientists, Higgins added.

"The kids in our classrooms will be the next astronauts," DiMatties said. "It's pretty cool."

During his week at space camp, DiMatties and the rest of roughly 100 program participants that week - 288 took part over three weeks - stayed in the residence halls at the University of Alabama's Huntsville campus. Each morning, they took a bus to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center for 12-hour days of jet simulations, mock space missions, survival training, rocket-building and guest speakers, including NASA Astronaut Don Thomas, who participated in four space missions during his career.

At James Martin, DiMatties said he plans to apply what he learned at space camp in his math class and to create an elective class - a unique option offered to Alternative Middle Years teachers - on space science.

"I teach a 90-minute class, so the kinesthetic activities [I learned at the space camp] are great to get kids out of their seats and break the monotony," DiMatties said, referring to the study of body movements. "They gave [us] a lot of stuff to work with."

Sifting through the five resource CDs, the educator information on the NASA Web site he can now access, and figuring out how to apply everything in his classroom will be his project for the remainder of summer.

"I want to build an awareness in students of the NASA program," he said.

DiMatties also added that he'd like to tell other teachers about the program, which he learned of through a NASA and Immaculata University-sponsored math and science fellowship.

"I want to get the word out," he said. "It's a great opportunity for teachers." *