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Norman teacher re- signs after banned book controversy
The Artemis project’s inital flight is delayed due to hydrogen leak.
Erika Brock News Editor
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The Artemis I launch was expected to happen early last week on Monday, August 29th, but was called off due to an unexpected hydrogen leak in one of the valves. At present, the cause of the leak is not entirely understood, and NASA is not quick to launch this iteration of the project when it could potentially waste billions of dollars.
Originally, the new attempt at the launch was going to take place on Saturday, September 3, but NASA once again called it off. They have invested over $40 billion into this craft, with the production of the
capsule, called Orion, and the rocket, called the Space Launch system.
Having two scrubbed launches, while not ideal, is a lot lower cost than if the rocket were launched and then failed in the air. It is imperative this early mission goes smoothly so that the later missions are successful.
The end goal of the Artemis project is to establish a long-term human presence on the moon and also send a manned mission to Mars. In total, the Artemis project is expected to cost over $91 billion. The Artemis project is named so in reference to Apollo’s twin sister, the goddess of the Moon as a callback to the first manned space missions to the Moon in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Artemis I is an unmanned test flight to ensure the new and improved technology that has been developed for moon landings since the Apollo missions is functional and safe for people to enter space and return home. NASA wants to test the heat shields to ensure they are able to exit and reenter Earth’s atmosphere and still hold the shuttle together.
Artemis II will be a manned mission. It is presently scheduled for May of 2024 and will last 10 days before the astronauts return
home. It will do a lunar flyby of one and a half laps before redirecting and returning to Earth.
Artemis III is when people will be landing on the moon and was originally tentatively scheduled for 2024, but after the scrubbed Artemis I launch it has a new launch date of 2025. Two of the astronauts will be sent to the moon’s south pole while two remain in orbit in the Orion capsule to land at a different area of the moon’s surface to be determined by NASA. This crew will stay on the moon for nearly seven days, almost twice what the manned Apollo missions did during their longest mission. They will conduct research on the frozen water and the hydrogen deposits that are approximately three feet below the lunar surface.
The Mars explorations will not take place for many more years. NASA has hopes of sending people to Mars in the late 2030s or early 2040s, but the ultimate launch date is very dependent on these early missions going smoothly.
Because Mars is so much further than the moon is from Earth, nearly a 500 day round trip, the conditions of the planet’s orbits have to align and then NASA has to be ready to launch the rocket. This will be a marathon, not a sprint, and it will be many years before the Artemis project is completed.
Artemis I prepares for its maiden voyage. courtesy NASA
Oklahoma teacher resigns after being forced to censor her library
Summer Boismier faces backlash from the State of Oklahoma Education Secretary over banned books.
Aurora Stewart Student Writer
Since 2021, dozens of bills have been passed throughout the United States regarding what one can and cannot teach in the classroom. Oklahoma recently became one of these many states with the passing of HB 1775.
This anti-critical race theory bill restricts what educators can discuss in schools, especially regarding race, ethnicity and gender. they could review them and decide which materials students could have access to. Regarding her library, Boismier asserted to CNN, “I pay for those books. I put books on my shelves that I think not only would be appealing to students, but center stories that have traditionally been left out of the official ELA [English Language Arts] curriculum.”
Instead of removing the books from her classroom entirely, she covered them in butcher paper and labeled them “Books the state doesn’t want you to read.” She also included a QR code on each book that her students could scan and use to access them for free in their own time. These QR codes gave her students access to resources from a program called “Books Unbanned”
On August 24, we saw the first fallout of this bill when a teacher in Norman resigned from her position. through the Brooklyn Public Library. This program provides free library cards to people all over the nation so they can ac-
Boismier shared a Brooklym Public Library Books Unbanned QR Code with her students. Courtesy Brooklyn Library
Summer Boismier, an English teacher at Norman High School, received instructions from her district to rid her classrooms of books that were not conducive to the guidelines of the 1775 bill. She told CNN that her district required English teachers to report the contents of their libraries so cess books that may not be allowed in their classrooms. Under these QR codes she wrote, “definitely don’t scan this!”
Boismier also provided clarification regarding her instructions from the district: “And I want to be clear, I was told to cover my books.”
In an email to Changing America, Wes Moody, a spokesperson for Norman public schools, said a parent reached out to the district about Boismier and a “potential issue regarding Oklahoma HB 1775.”
The parent’s concern regarded the use of classroom time to make political statements and personal assertions.
Moody later stated, “Like many educators, the teacher has concerns regarding censorship and book removal by the Oklahoma state legislature. However, as educators it is our goal to teach students to think critically, not to tell them what to think.”
According to Boismier, school district officials claimed the QR codes made the books seem forbidden and that they did not want to encourage illegal actions by students.
Boismier explained that the school forced her to take administrative leave and rebuked her for using class time to make political statements, though Moody denies Boismier was put on leave or suspended. While Boismier was instructed to return to the classroom Wednesday following her alleged administrative leave, she instead resigned.
This bill is an example of a larger trend in the US, but HB 1775 is especially harsh in its penalties as teachers can lose their licenses. The Oklahoma Education Secretary Ryan Walters called for the revocation of Boismier’s teacher’s license, stating “There is no place for a teacher with a liberal political agenda in the classroom. Ms. Boismier’s providing access to banned and pornographic material to students is unacceptable and we must ensure she doesn’t go to another district and do the same thing,”
Following this, Walter’s received pushback from the Oklahoma Education Association who called his statements and bill interpretation inaccurate, while urging him to focus on the real issues in the classroom.
Through the next year we expect to continue to watch how these bills shape modern education, impacting educators and students alike.
