116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Metro High marks 50th anniversary with NASA Moon Tree planting
The school is one of few recipients to get a sapling that flew around the moon
May. 31, 2024 10:45 am, Updated: May. 31, 2024 6:47 pm
CEDAR RAPIDS — To mark the school’s 50th anniversary, Metro High School students and staff planted a tree that had flown around the moon as a seedling in 2022 on NASA’s Artemis I mission.
The school was one of 50 museums, universities, federal agencies and K-12 organizations in the United States this spring to receive a Moon Tree, although more institutions will be chosen to receive them later. An application for Metro High — an alternative school in the Cedar Rapids Community School District — to receive a Moon Tree was submitted last fall by first-year biology teacher Kali Muhlbauer.
With NASA’s Artemis II mission scheduled to launch no later than September 2025, Muhlbauer said, “It’s a unique opportunity to showcase to students, ‘This could be you.’”
NASA chose institutions based on criteria that evaluated their suitability to care for the various tree species and their ability to maximize educational opportunities around the life and growth of the tree in their communities.
The first Moon Trees were brought onto the Apollo 14 mission about 50 years ago by NASA astronaut and former U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Services smokejumper Stuart Roosa. One of the original seeds was planted at the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines.
This tree — an American sycamore sapling that was part of a NASA mission to eventually return Americans to the moon — was planted Thursday in front of Metro High School along 12th Avenue SE, between Seventh and Eighth streets SE.
‘It’s a big family’
Hundreds of community members and former Metro High students and staff celebrated the sapling’s planting and the 50th anniversary of the school.
The first thing teachers and staff — former and current — will tell you about Metro High School is that it’s a “family.”
Carlos Grant, principal of Metro from 2014-16, traveled from his home in Greenville, S.C., to “show appreciation for this place,” he said.
“This place is very near and dear to my heart and to a lot of people in this community,” Grant said.
Grant came to Metro High shortly after receiving his Ph.D., and was looking forward to being known as “Dr. Grant.” But he soon realized that at Metro, students call staff by their first names.
“Where I’m from, that’s a sign of disrespect,” Grant said. “The opposite is true here. It’s a sign of love and affirmation and a symbol of what it means to have true relationships and connection in an environment for kids who are already at-risk and have not been successful in the educational system.”
That connection to people translates into students who are passionate to learn, Grant said. Through hands-on and project-based learning that connects students with the real world, students who come to Metro graduate with a plan for what’s next, he said.
“I don’t know where I would be without Metro,” said Jacob Cowger, who was a student there from 1996-98.
Cowger said at a traditional high school setting, he had trouble focusing and getting to school on time. At Metro, he learned business, wood shop and joined a clown club.
“I learned how to survive in the world,” he said.
Today, Cowger is a professional clown and owns Balloons, Etc. & The Costume Emporium in downtown Cedar Rapids.
“The teachers here, even after I left, I’m still in contact with them. It’s a big family,” Cowger said.
Kat Lewit was a student at Metro from 2014-17. She transferred to the alternative high school after she had her first child. The day care program — which was closed by district officials in 2022 — helped her continue attending school, she said.
“The teachers were determined to help me graduate,” Lewit said. “They helped me with everything — even if it didn’t have to do with school. I doubted myself all the time, but they told me I could do it, and my kids would be proud of me.”
Metro High Principal Mark Groteluschen said the Moon Tree is like a time capsule. “It solidifies us as a school. We’re here, and we’re going to continue to grow,” he said.
Graduation is an especially noteworthy occasion for students at Metro High. There were 48 students who graduated this month from the school, but the ceremony took a couple hours, Groteluschen said. Each graduating student picks a staff member to write a speech about the student’s accomplishments, which is read during the ceremony.
“We recognize the perseverance they’ve had to accomplish this,” Groteluschen said.
Groteluschen started at the school more than a decade ago as a science teacher.
“I think back to my first interview. I vividly remember it was at the end of the day, and a couple students came in looking for rides home. The staff there said, ‘We got you. We’ll take care of you.’ It’s something I see today. Our staff is willing to go above and beyond.”
Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com
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