PCS students had an amazing opportunity to speak with a pararescue jumper from the Air National Guard who spent part of his career assigned to NASA’s space shuttle program.

Retired Senior Master General Jack Brehm is a PCS grandfather who volunteered to visit PCS and share his knowledge of the United States’ space program with Kindergarten, Lower and Middle Primary students as part of our Astronomy Integrated Studies Unit. Children heard about the day to day operations involved in building, launching and recovering a spacecraft.

Already, Lower and Middle Primary students are putting concepts and details Mr. Brehm shared into use. Middle Primary writers are adding three aspects of Mr. Brehm’s work to their space-travel themed graphic novels, and Lower Primary students were thrilled to see and feel the Mr. Brehm’s parachute since they are constructing parachutes to help land their space capsules in STEAM. Kindergarten reported: “The influence our guest speaker had on the children was palpable in the classroom today, as children played with the space shuttle model and got to work on the puzzles right away. Echoes of the information learned yesterday could be heard in the conversations kindergarteners were having today.”

We are so grateful at PCS to welcome professionals from our community to share their firsthand experiences with our students. Hearing firsthand accounts is so powerful, engaging, and memorable. Thank you, Mr. Brehm.