CLASS UNITES CALTECH WITH LITTLEROCK HIGH.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LITTLEROCK - Twenty-seven Littlerock High School students wrapped up a class not by taking a test at their desks, but by making a presentation before Caltech professors and researchers, Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers and a TRW engineer.

Under the guidance of a California Institute of Technology researcher in observational cosmology, teacher Lee Syer's astronomy class built a quarter-scale mock-up of a satellite - scanning the Internet for satellite designs, drawing plans for the Caltech machine shop and keeping within a mock $100 million budget.

``I thought it would be a regular class, learning out of books. We did a lot of independent learning with the satellite project. You do a lot of hands-on stuff. It made class more fun, really, than just learning out of a book,'' said Mark Hogains, 17, of Lake Los Angeles, the project's chief accountant.

The astronomy class, plus Syer's top chemistry students, traveled to Caltech in Pasadena last week to show their mock-up and explain their mission plan at what in the real aerospace industry would be a final design review.

The satellite is about the size and shape of a small microwave oven. The aluminum frame was fabricated by the Caltech machine shop. A computer modem plays the part of its computer brain. Wooden dowels painted gray and yellow are the hydrazine maneuvering thrusters. Styrofoam shapes represent other electronic parts and the main sensor.

Students in Littlerock's computer-aided design class drew up the plans.

Their main sources of information were the Internet and a 2-inch-thick textbook called ``Space Mission Analysis and Design.''

Students said they learned much from the unconventional class.

``You have to be creative - you have to be able to work together,'' said Jessica Okerlund, 17, of Littlerock, the assistant project manager.

The main goal was to interest teens in science, said Syer, who was an analytical chemist for Litton Industries before he became a teacher.

Caltech hopes to bring similar efforts to teen-agers elsewhere in Southern California.

``We're going to expand it next year to include other schools. This year it was like a pilot program,'' said Ravinder Bhatia, the postdoctoral scholar who has worked with the Littlerock students since October.

Superintendent Bob Girolamo approved the purchase of a fax machine for Syer's classroom so the students could communicate with Bhatia. They also held telephone conferences with him every one or two weeks, and he came to visit monthly.

Before Thursday's presentation, the teen-agers twice visited Caltech. Bhatia also arranged tours of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Owens Valley Radio Observatory.

Syer said the satellite program grew out of a chance encounter between him and his students with Bhatia at the 1999 PlanetFest in Pasadena.

``He said he would like to bring the kids to Caltech and it just kind of blossomed,'' Syer said.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Littlerock High School students Thomas Avison, left, and Cesar Adame prepare for their presentation to Caltech.

(2) Littlerock High School astronomy students constructed a mock-up satellite and presented their findings to professors at Caltech.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer