Mt Ousley Public School students always have a blast during their science lessons, thanks to their space-enthusiast teacher Neil Bramsen.
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Mr Bramsen has just returned from 10 days at an Advanced Space Camp in the United States, where he got to stand underneath the famous NASA space shuttle Atlantis and pretend to be an astronaut at the vast US Space and Rocket Centre in Alabama.
He was selected as one of just 15 international teachers from the US, India, Canada and Australia, to attend the camp.
"One of the coolest things was when we did scuba diving in an underwater astronaut training tank," Mr Bramsen said.
"You build objects while underwater to get a feel for how an astronaut would feel in a gravity-free zone and you do simulations in shuttle simulators and space station simulators where you work in a team to spend three hours on a space mission."
Mr Bramsen attended an entry level space camp in 2010, allowing him to run a range of programs far removed from a textbook science lesson.
He also runs an after-school research group, where students in Years 2 to 6 build their own bottle rockets and use computer programs called Earth-cam and Moon-cam to take photos from space.
"It's all about telling the students that science is a possible and valuable career path," he said.
"A lot of students respond well to these hands-on 'design and make' activities, and that can engage students who aren't otherwise engaged in the learning process."
Returning from his second stint at space camp, Mr Bramsen brought home an authentic US spacesuit and a whole new ways to inspire budding rocket scientists and robotics specialists.
"We will be setting up rocketry and robotics clubs at school later this year," he said.
"The robotics is quite advanced, so it's more for Year 5 and Year 6 students but you can start rocketry in Year 2 - because it really is just about inspiring creativity and imagination."