As a former science teacher, I went to great lengths to capture the interest of my students. While I like to think I succeeded more often than not, I doubt that I achieved rock-star status. Perhaps if I'd participated in the Weightless Flights program as these teachers did, things would have been different.

The weightless flight experiences are expensive--about $5,000 per person--a price out of reach for most schools and teachers. Northrup Grumman Foundation accepts applications from eligible middle-school teachers for its Weightless Flights of Discovery Program, with the goal of giving them tools to stimulate their students' interest in the sciences. After one flight, teacher Adrienne Manzone pronounced, "My coolness factor will go up 100 percent." Teachers who are selected participate in hands-on science workshops as well as zero-gravity flights and experiments.

Geoffrey Bergen, another teacher on the flight, commented on how hard it is "to teach out of a textbook" when you consider the technological world students live in. The Weightless Flight program "gives you a new tool for Newton's laws." To achieve the weightless experience, the airplane flies in series of parabolas (a sort of curved freefall). The teachers experience zero gravity as well as gravity comparable to that of the Moon and Mars.

Very cool, indeed.