Avon students talk to astronaut at international space station

AVON, Conn. (WTNH) -- At times during a school year students will hear from a guest speaker discussing a topic that the class might currently be covering. On Thursday a group of students in our state had a special guest during their learning process, one from outer space.

"N-E-1, SS, N-E-1,SS, this is Whisky-One, Tango-Mike-Sierra, over."

What an amazing experience to have the final frontier right in your grasp.

"Whisky-Tango-Mike-Sierra, I-S-S-Copy."

For about ten minutes, Commander Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut, was an out-of-this world teacher to star-eyed children at Avon's Tolcott Mountain Academy.

"We go around 16 times a day, we got about 400-thousand miles," said Hadfield.

"It was really cool. It isn't something you get to do everyday," said student Alissa Pace.

Students asked questions from Earth...

"Do you think we are polluting space by our space programs? Over," said Michael.

Commander Hadfield answered them from 230 miles up, on the International Space Station.

"That's a great question, Michael, we need to be really careful," said Hadfield.

This took a serious amount of time to coordinate. Coordinate with space station, coordinate with NASA, coordinate to get these schools together, plus a grant was needed, to make science come to life.

"Kids need experiences that really excite them and get them turned them on to something. That's where they find the motivation to learn," said Jonathan Craig, Exec. Dir. of the Talcott Mountain Science Center.

"I almost never use a pound of force to pick something up and move it around, even if it's really really big," said Hadfield.

Perhaps, one of these faces will one day take that journey where no one has gone before and that first step, that one small step, may have started right here.

"It made me want to reach for my dreams, even more than I wanted to before," said Pace.

"NE-1 SS, This is Whisky-One, Mike-Sierra, I want to thank you for the contact. Clear. Over."