Underwater Astronaut

Today was a very exciting day in Margaret's WAVE training. They were taken to the Scuba center to do the underwater training like real astronauts. Margaret had never tried Scuba diving, so she was very excited!

Here is Margaret's team: Kyle, Margaret, Mary, and John. They had to design some constructions that could be made with PVC pipe and then assemble them underwater. This taught them some very good teamwork skills, because you can't talk to each other down there! WAVE teaches the kids lots of skills that will be useful their whole lives: problem solving, teamwork, and leadership, as well as things like using the scientific method, etc.

The Scuba instructor, Gerry, gave them instructions beforehand. Margaret loved being able to breathe underwater, although all the kids had trouble with the pressure in their ears.

This picture is a little hard to see. They had a viewer that the parents could put in the water and look through to see what the kids were doing. I stuck the camera in there to take this photo. That's Margaret with the green scuba tank, and I think the other swimmer is Kyle. They managed to get their constructions together, although it took longer than the allotted time because the pipes kept separating. However, they were the last team in the water, so the teacher gave them extra time to finish because nobody else was waiting for a turn. Many thanks to Mr Peterson and Webber Middle School for setting up such a great program!