Most Baltimore-area students aren?t giving much thought to how their teachers spend their summer vacations. But a handful of local teachers are turning out-of-this-world vacations into fodder for their classrooms this fall.

Katie Maloney, a fourth-grade teacher at Broadneck Elementary School in Howard County, spent six hours as part of a simulated space shuttle mission at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., then suited up in SCUBA gear to practice space suit maneuvers 26 feet under.