Scott City youngsters heading for space camp

Christopher Sansoucie is about to get a unique 10th birthday present.

The fourth-grader, along with classmate Noelle Dobbs, are attending the Space Camp for Interested Visually Impaired Students in Huntsville, Ala., this coming week. Sansoucie, who turns a decade old on Sept. 29, and Dobbs will be accompanied by Pam Arbeiter, teacher of the visually impaired and certified orientation and mobility specialist.

Asked if he was excited, Sansoucie responded, "Oh yeah."

Christopher Sansoucie

"I wanted to learn about the things astronauts do, and I want to learn a lot of things I haven't learned before," Sansoucie said.

The trip, which runs Sunday through Thursday, is sponsored by Lighthouse for the Blind in St. Louis. Coordinator Dan Oates said 190 blind and visually impaired fourth-through 12th-graders from all over the country and world will converge on NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center this year. Arbeiter said about 40 children are going from Missouri.

"I'm going to learn what astronauts do in space," Dobbs said. "Astronauts have to work out a really lot to keep their heart in shape."

Youngsters also will have a chance to experience what life in space is like. Separated by gender, students will stay seven to a room in a habitat designed like a space station with small portal-like windows and bunk beds

"They have simulators that simulate weightlessness and what it's like to be on the moon. They do a mission. One of them might be a pilot, and the other, someone in mission control,"Arbeiter said.

"They all work together to complete the mission," she added.

Additionally, students will learn about the history of space travel and take part in hands-on experiments and a competition called Space Bowl to see which team learns the most, Arbeiter said.

Oates said the camp is made completely accessible to blind and visually impaired kids with synethic speech, large print, screen enlargement software and refreshable Braille displays.

"The big thing we push in the program is the camaraderie between their peers," Oates said. "A lot of these children don't get to hang around other blind or visually impaired children. … It's a pretty powerful thing for them to be around their peers.…"

Craig Moore, a scientist at Marshall Space Flight Center, is another person the children could potentially bond with. Oates said Moore is blind, and having him on hand could open up a few more career options for campers they might not have thought of before.

"They get a lot of questions answered they wouldn't normally get answered, because get to talk to adult who's blind," Oates said. "Sometimes it's not the science stuff that's most beneficial. It's the personal interaction."

This is the 24th year the camp has been offered and some 3,000 youngsters have come through, Oates said.

This week is specifically set aside for blind and visually impaired children, those with 20/70 eyesight or worse with their better eye with glasses, Arbeiter said. Legally blind is 20/200 and 20/20 is normal.

Dobbs uses an optical device to see small print close up and another that resembles a thin telescope for distance. "They've been working on the tools and they're going to take them with them," Arbeiter said, adding some participants will be Braille readers and there also will be tactile diagrams and models so the children can better tell what's in a picture.

Arbeiter has attended space camp three times and come back with pins from a variety of places adorning her lanyard. She said visually impaired youngsters may find it hard to introduce themselves to other people. To help them do that, Dobbs and Sansoucie will bring pins from Cape Girardeau -- and possibly Scott City -- with them to exchange with other children.

"This opportunity came up for them to go and I wanted them to have an opportunity to meet new people and go to new places," she added.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

Pertinent address: 3000 Main St., Scott City