When Patrick Huth learned he would be teaching an honors astronomy course at Community College of Allegheny Countys Boyce campus this semester, he figured he should offer his students something special.

So he went out and borrowed parts of the moon.

To be precise, what Mr. Huth has are a half-dozen tiny but priceless samples of moon rocks and lunar dust encased in a clear Lucite disk, all of which must be returned to the federal government after two weeks.

Between 1969 and 1972, astronauts on six Apollo missions gathered and brought back to Earth 842 pounds of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which houses many of the samples at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Some of those national treasures are available for two-week loaners to educators like Mr. Huth, who underwent training in the science behind those rocks and in the strict rules to safeguard them while in transit.

In the parlance of NASA, Mr. Huth, a physics professor and former NASA contractor, is lunar certified.

He plans to bring the moon rocks and a separate disk with meteorite samples into not only his astronomy class but also into his physics classes and those of other Boyce professors who have expressed interest. The rocks also will be displayed in the Boyce Student Union from 12:30 to 3 p.m. today and from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday.

I wanted to get them into as many classrooms on campus as possible, Mr. Huth said. Its generated a lot of excitement and thats a good thing.

Along with what they teach about the moons composition and history, these lunar loaners symbolize one of Americas crowning scientific achievements, Mr. Huth said. Increasingly, they also are a historical marker for students who grew up decades removed from the Apollo era.

I know a couple people who have told me they want to take selfies with them, Mr. Huth said. Thats not something you would have heard back then.

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NASA loans moon rocks for CCAC astronomy class