Big Island teacher Sheri Kojima will never forget the "Vomit Comet."

The Comet, a modified airplane similar to the one NASA uses to prepare astronauts for zero gravity, flies in a parabolic motion, allowing its passengers to float in midair for about 20 seconds at the top of its trajectory.

Kojima, who is reluctant to take even commercial airline flights, almost didn't board the plane.

But other teachers persuaded her to make the flight, which turned out to be one of her most enjoyable experiences at Space Academy in Huntsville, Ala. "I got hooked," she said.

Kojima, a business teacher at Waiakea High School, is among a group of Hawai'i educators who recently completed Space Academy programs at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. They are now folding what they learned about rocket construction, astronomy and Mars missions into classroom lessons about science, technology and teamwork.

"Space camp changed my life, so I had to share it with my kids," said Kojima, who went to Huntsville for the first time in 2006 as Hawai'i's Teacher of the Year with the national Teacher of the Year program.

The center offers several week long "space academies" filled with educator workshops about space science and exploration. The programs wrap up with teachers taking part in simulated space shuttle missions.

Other center programs are geared for students. Last March, Kojima took nine sixth-graders from Waiakea Intermediate School and three students from Kalama Intermediate School and Lokelani Intermediate School on Maui to the center's space camp.

"It was lots of fun," said Owen Sandstrom, 11, an incoming seventh-grader at Waiakea Intermediate. "At night you stay up really late, but you learn a lot."

In addition to absorbing the history of NASA's space missions, Sandstrom built a mini-rocket and served as an astronaut in a simulated expedition to Mars. He said the experience made him more excited about science and space.

Eighth-graders at Our Savior Lutheran School last year designed their own space stations, participated in the University of Hawai'i's Junior Engineering Competition and Exposition and built "Newton scooters" — small cars that use a force other than an engine to move.

Their teacher, Tinell Priddy, was one of two educators sponsored by Honeywell International to attend Space Academy in 2006.

Priddy used a book written by former NASA engineer Homer Hickam, "Rocket Boys: A Memoir," to teach language arts students about rocketry principles and the history of America's space program.

"I think in this setting I reached even those students that aren't math and science techies like I am," she said.

Priddy this year landed a spot at the center's Advanced Academy, which included an underwater mission and a behind-the-scenes look at Kennedy Space Center.

She is also serving as a teacher and counselor for the 2007 Teachers of the Year at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center.

"I feel like I won the lottery," Priddy said. "It was the greatest professional development experience I've ever gone through."

Dario Salgado, an eighth-grade earth science teacher at 'Aiea Intermediate School, is still reviewing an enormous packet of lesson ideas he received last month at Space Academy.

He plans to give his students projects this fall that are "more real-life," such as using water pressure to propel a rocket, or building and testing a Mars lander made of balloons, cardboard, a plastic bag and an egg. "These are things that real scientists from NASA are working on now," Salgado said.

Hands-on activities that can be done with items found around the house aim to remind students that science is fun and within their reach, he said.

Priddy will be leaving Hawai'i for Washington state this fall but said she is confident that she has built a strong foundation for her Hawai'i students.

"I look forward to the day when my students pursue careers in mathematics, science, technology and engineering, and hope that they remember me as the teacher that fostered the beginning of their own journey into these realms."