Ginny RushingOwner & GA Lead Teacher Ginny was born in North Carolina and raised in Kentucky and Ohio, before returning to North Carolina to attend high school and college. After earning bachelor’s degrees in elementary education and psychology from Meredith College, Ginny taught elementary school in North Carolina and Texas. Ginny ultimately landed in Georgia and began SparkPoint Innovations, the company which brings the Big Canyon Balloon and Orbit Earth Expo in-school science programs to schools in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Minnesota. Ginny is married and lives in Alpharetta, Georgia with her two sons, two stepsons, and two dogs. In her free time, she enjoys being outdoors, reading, and eating copious amounts of cheese. |
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Tracy CusterMarketing Director Tracy is a lifelong resident of North Carolina, though she loves to travel. She was a NC Teaching Fellow at Elon College and earned her MLIS degree from UNC-Greensboro. She has been a classroom teacher, school librarian, and technology guru over the course of her twenty plus years in public education. She was the Orbit Earth Expo lead teacher for the Carolinas from 2015-2019 and is passionate about making earth science accessible for K-8 students. She is married and has two children in their early twenties. When she is not working, she loves to read, play the Sims, and spend time with her family, which includes four cats and a bearded dragon. |
With our huge, patented cold air canyon, we fast forward into the future to see how nature’s forces change our 15 ft tall canyon model. Students debate fast versus slow changes to the earth while they experience weathering, erosion and deposition. They participate to create landforms including a barrier island, a sand dune, and a delta. Forces causing erosion are explored as we pause to compare rocks and minerals – what is the difference? What are types of rocks we know and how are those formed? Inside the canyon, students will discover a fossil record and an oil deposit. What are the fossils telling the explorers about the relative age of these layers? How did the oil form? Is it a renewable or non-renewable natural resource? The answers to these questions and much more will be discovered during out unforgettable, interactive earth science programs for each grade level.
Students journey into space to create and experience the cycles, systems and relationships between the earth, moon and sun using our huge, inflatable Earth model and scale-sized moon. While interacting with the inflatable representations in a darkened gymnasium with a light to represent the sun, students manipulate the models to experience eclipses, seasonal/lunar cycles, creation of winds, day/night cycles, tides, rotation vs revolution, physical characteristics of the earth, moon and sun, gravity, order of the planets, seasons and more! The Orbit Earth Expo Program correlates to the state and grade level science objectives. There are different age-appropriate programs for each grade level.