ROCKETS, LASERS AND FUN; TECH CLASS GIVES TEENS RIGHT STUFF.

Byline: Sherry Joe Crosby Daily News Staff Writer

In David Nagel's technology class, San Fernando Middle School students sit up and pay attention. Misbehavior could cost them a trip in the flight simulator, a 6-foot-high wooden reproduction of the space shuttle cockpit, or a chance to race their toy drag cars on the school playground in June.

From the moment they enter Nagel's Exploring Technology lab - a glowing, blinking paean to computer gadgetry - they are hard at work, learning about everything from laser and satellite communications to robotics and virtual reality.

By the time students leave the semesterlong class, they will have built a model rocket, designed a wooden bridge and created a toy car powered by a solid-fuel rocket engine and timed by computer to the nearest ten-thousandth of a second.

``You look forward to coming here every day,'' said Annette Mendoza, 13, voicing a common refrain. ``It makes school fun.''

Nagel, a former flight instructor at nearby Van Nuys Airport and a 15-year teacher of electronics and plastics, started the program in 1991 after learning about it at a seminar.

``It's a labor of love,'' said the soft-spoken teacher who spent $4,000 of his own money during the program's first year. ``It's almost getting paid to do a hobby. This keeps me going. I arrive at 6 o'clock in the morning and leave at 6 o'clock or 8 o'clock at night.''

Under the Exploring Technology program, students work in pairs and visit up to 20 work stations or ``modules'' featuring different technologies such as desktop publishing, structural engineering and aerodynamics.

Using guidebooks that Nagel has written, students complete a series of exercises on computers located at each station.

One of the most popular modules is rocketry and space where students explore the physics of rocket flight complete with preflight and postflight mathematical calculations.

Students master trigonometry functions by calculating the altitude of model rockets they build themselves; they learn Cartesian coordinates by designing and creating key chains using computers and special cutting machines.

Edgar Lopez said the class is unlike any he's ever had.

``You get to do lasers and robots and build stuff like rocket cars and egg launchers,'' the 13-year-old said. ``It's fun.''

Designed for at-risk teens, the program is as much a learning experience as an encouragement to stay in school.

Students with good grades, citizenship records and attendance rates, for example, are allowed to spend one hour in the flight simulator built this summer by Nagel, students and National Guard Maj. Greg Miller, who helps teach the course.

Right now, the simulator houses video games but Nagel soon hopes to install a Microsoft flight simulator that will be used in conjunction with other areas of the class.

``We try to spark an interest and light a fire under their butts,'' Nagel said. ``A lot of kids come from families where the parents haven't gone beyond eighth grade. The average kid comes in here with a few strikes against them.''

The program has proved so successful in boosting student attendance rates and their grasp of math and science, that the Army National Guard has donated about $2.5 million since 1993 to help spread the program to 19 other middle schools, including several in the San Fernando Valley.

By the time school ends next year, five more middle schools will have joined the program for a total of 25 campuses.

``One of the things that come out right away is that (students) have better attendance,'' said resource teacher Gene Lew who helps oversee the 20 schools that now have Exploring Technology labs.

At San Fernando Middle School, attendance jumped 7 percent in Nagel's class during the program's first year - and there's rarely a discipline problem.

``The students are all on task,'' Lew said. ``That's the case with most of the students - they seem to be well behaved and they take pride in their work.''

The class already has made a difference in Edgar Garcia's life.

The shy eighth-grader never realized he had a knack for electronics until he entered Room M1, Nagel's class. Now he wants to be an electrical engineer.

``I came here and saw electronics is my stuff,'' he said, beaming. ``I like being around it.''

For Christian Sanchez, 13, the class has fueled a desire to go to college and study science.

``I decided I wanted to be a scientist when I saw everything has a reason,'' the San Fernando eighth-grader said. ``I'd like to explain why.''

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PHOTO (color) Teacher David Nagel shows off the flight simulator at San Fernando Middle School.

Terri Thuente/Daily News