Answering the Sputnik surprise
At CU, school teacher assisted ‘space race’ by honing his scientific skills
By Clint Talbott
John Horst was a young science teacher in a California junior-high school in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched humankind’s first orbiting satellite. The United States, which was leading the Cold War “arms race,” was suddenly losing a new contest: the space race.
Horst was one of legions of citizens who responded to the call to improve science education, to help beat the Russians in this new frontier. That mission brought him to the University of Colorado, which enriched his life personally and academically.
By today’s standards, the satellite called Sputnik I was a modest triumph. Launched into a low orbit, the beach-ball-sized satellite circled the world in a little more than 90 minutes.
Before its batteries died, 22 days after launch, Sputnik I emitted radio signals that could be monitored on Earth by ham-radio enthusiasts. The satellite itself didn’t last much longer than its batteries; after about three months, it fell from orbit and burned up in the atmosphere.
Shocked and chagrined, the United States sprang into action. Within months, Congress had passed and President Eisenhower had signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA. Congress also poured $134 million into the National Science Foundation to support scientific research.
Against this backdrop, Horst sought to improve his scientific teaching. John M. Cleveland, co-author of a college physics text, was leading an institute at CU (funded by the NSF) designed to bring secondary science teachers up to date.
The program included graduate courses in biology, chemistry and physics, along with seminars on improving high-school curricula. Upon completion, the teachers were awarded a master’s of basic science degree from the College of Arts and Sciences.
Science teachers across the country could apply to this program. Horst sent his academic transcripts and a half-page essay explaining why he should be accepted. “I wrote and rewrote this essay 22 times before sending it to Dr. Cleveland,” Horst recalls.
The effort paid off, and Horst was grateful. As a school teacher with five small children, he saw “no way to continue my science education.” But the fellowship covered his tuition, books and a stipend for his family.
“For me, this was like winning a sweepstakes.”
The family arrived in Boulder in September 1959 and was assigned a newly winterized cottage at Chautauqua Park.
Horst has fond memories of “the thrill I felt being able to attend a good university.” The natural beauty was a bonus, he says. “The ever-present Flatirons piercing the mountain sky behind us were truly inspiring.”
Further, the pink stone buildings on campus “made one feel like he was in a hallowed mansion campus.”
The professors were tough but helpful, Horst says. Through Cleveland, his faculty adviser, Horst got to know the late George Gamow, the CU physics professor who proposed the “Big Bang theory” of the origin of the universe (and after whom CU’s Gamow Tower is named).
Horst says his training at CU was immensely helpful. “Although I loved teaching science, I had always felt inadequate for the job at hand because of my meager training in science,” he notes. “After that year, this was not the case. I now felt competent to teach any assignment.”
The background he got at CU enabled him to join other institutes: in physics at Franklin and Marshall College, in biology at Rutgers University and New Science Curricula at New Mexico Highlands University. “Later, when I taught biology and physical science for non-science majors, I always felt prepared and knowledgeable for what students needed.”
The Sputnik crisis was not the first time Horst answered the call of his country. In 1940, after the passage of the Selective Service Act, Quakers and Mennonites hoped to serve the nation without violating their conscientious objection to war.
Horst and his family were Mennonites and thus pacifists. The executive secretary of the Mennonite Central Committee, Orie Miller, and John Horst’s uncle, Amos Horst, arranged to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“President Roosevelt received them cordially, and they told him they loved our country and would like to have their young men do something constructive for the country,” Horst recalls. “Roosevelt responded positively and said he felt something could be done.”
As a result, Roosevelt created the Civilian Public Service, which allowed 12,000 conscientious objectors to do “work of national importance” in 152 CPS camps around the nation.
John Horst served nearly three years in CPS in Florida. In 1946 he was transferred to CPS Reserve, where he served on United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration cattle boats that took cows and horses to war-torn Europe. “Being a sea-going cowboy who tended the animals on the three-week voyage was challenging and interesting. These trips put me in view of the devastation caused by World War II in Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands.”
Horst retired in 1988 as associate professor emeritus from Millersville University in Pennsylvania. But five decades after he came to Boulder, moved into a Chautauqua bungalow and learned how to help inspire the next generation of scientists, CU retains a special place on John Horst’s heart.
By Clint Talbott
John Horst was a young science teacher in a California junior-high school in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched humankind’s first orbiting satellite. The United States, which was leading the Cold War “arms race,” was suddenly losing a new contest: the space race.
Horst was one of legions of citizens who responded to the call to improve science education, to help beat the Russians in this new frontier. That mission brought him to the University of Colorado, which enriched his life personally and academically.
John Horst
By today’s standards, the satellite called Sputnik I was a modest triumph. Launched into a low orbit, the beach-ball-sized satellite circled the world in a little more than 90 minutes.
Before its batteries died, 22 days after launch, Sputnik I emitted radio signals that could be monitored on Earth by ham-radio enthusiasts. The satellite itself didn’t last much longer than its batteries; after about three months, it fell from orbit and burned up in the atmosphere.
Shocked and chagrined, the United States sprang into action. Within months, Congress had passed and President Eisenhower had signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA. Congress also poured $134 million into the National Science Foundation to support scientific research.
Against this backdrop, Horst sought to improve his scientific teaching. John M. Cleveland, co-author of a college physics text, was leading an institute at CU (funded by the NSF) designed to bring secondary science teachers up to date.
The program included graduate courses in biology, chemistry and physics, along with seminars on improving high-school curricula. Upon completion, the teachers were awarded a master’s of basic science degree from the College of Arts and Sciences.
Science teachers across the country could apply to this program. Horst sent his academic transcripts and a half-page essay explaining why he should be accepted. “I wrote and rewrote this essay 22 times before sending it to Dr. Cleveland,” Horst recalls.
The effort paid off, and Horst was grateful. As a school teacher with five small children, he saw “no way to continue my science education.” But the fellowship covered his tuition, books and a stipend for his family.
“For me, this was like winning a sweepstakes.”
The family arrived in Boulder in September 1959 and was assigned a newly winterized cottage at Chautauqua Park.
Horst has fond memories of “the thrill I felt being able to attend a good university.” The natural beauty was a bonus, he says. “The ever-present Flatirons piercing the mountain sky behind us were truly inspiring.”
Further, the pink stone buildings on campus “made one feel like he was in a hallowed mansion campus.”
The professors were tough but helpful, Horst says. Through Cleveland, his faculty adviser, Horst got to know the late George Gamow, the CU physics professor who proposed the “Big Bang theory” of the origin of the universe (and after whom CU’s Gamow Tower is named).
Horst says his training at CU was immensely helpful. “Although I loved teaching science, I had always felt inadequate for the job at hand because of my meager training in science,” he notes. “After that year, this was not the case. I now felt competent to teach any assignment.”
The background he got at CU enabled him to join other institutes: in physics at Franklin and Marshall College, in biology at Rutgers University and New Science Curricula at New Mexico Highlands University. “Later, when I taught biology and physical science for non-science majors, I always felt prepared and knowledgeable for what students needed.”
The Sputnik crisis was not the first time Horst answered the call of his country. In 1940, after the passage of the Selective Service Act, Quakers and Mennonites hoped to serve the nation without violating their conscientious objection to war.
Horst and his family were Mennonites and thus pacifists. The executive secretary of the Mennonite Central Committee, Orie Miller, and John Horst’s uncle, Amos Horst, arranged to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“President Roosevelt received them cordially, and they told him they loved our country and would like to have their young men do something constructive for the country,” Horst recalls. “Roosevelt responded positively and said he felt something could be done.”
As a result, Roosevelt created the Civilian Public Service, which allowed 12,000 conscientious objectors to do “work of national importance” in 152 CPS camps around the nation.
John Horst served nearly three years in CPS in Florida. In 1946 he was transferred to CPS Reserve, where he served on United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration cattle boats that took cows and horses to war-torn Europe. “Being a sea-going cowboy who tended the animals on the three-week voyage was challenging and interesting. These trips put me in view of the devastation caused by World War II in Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands.”
Horst retired in 1988 as associate professor emeritus from Millersville University in Pennsylvania. But five decades after he came to Boulder, moved into a Chautauqua bungalow and learned how to help inspire the next generation of scientists, CU retains a special place on John Horst’s heart.