School After An 8 Year
Absence
February 10, 2006 (Canoga Park, CA)
The Traveling Space Museum made a triumphant return to a Los Angeles school- NEW Academy Elementary with many one-of-kind attractions that amazed over 500 students, parents and LA city dignitaries. NEW is an acronym for New Economics for Women –a local LA nonprofit that created a 5 acre complex that includes the NEW Academy charter school, a women’s clinic and temporary housing for 119 families.
The students of NEW Academy Elementary School was treated to numerous space exhibits including the actual AV-8 Jump Jet prop featured in the movie: True Lies. Other attractions seen in the panorama schoolyard photo included the only full-motion flight simulation that goes to schools as well as a captured UFO that they could explore, a fully functional SpaceLab space station module and a Lunar Utility Vehicle obstructed by a backboard. The space food, space suits and Shuttle Space Toilet are now legendary must-see exhibits.
It was TSM’s first appearance at an LA Unified School District school, since TSM began back in 1998 at McClay Middle School in Pacoima, Ca. In eight years, Traveling Space Museum crisscrossed America from San Diego to West Virginia and from Washington DC back to Santa Monica Ca. but, because of budget cuts and bureaucracy, not one appearance could be arranged inside Los Angeles (where they are based) until now. A determined Principal, Dr. Edward Fiszer made it happen scrapping together reserve funds and appealing for support of neighborhood civic groups. As president of Canoga –Winneka Rotary Club, TSM president Ivor Dawson received funding from several Rotary Clubs from District 5260 as well as local neighborhood Kiwanis Clubs. The event was thus co-sponsored by the Rotary Clubs of Canoga Park–Winnetka, Woodland Hills and Mid-Valley as well as the Kiwanis Clubs of Calabasas and Canoga Park.
