Filed under: Astronomy, Conference, Educational Materials, Higher Education, K-12, NASA, Professional Development, STEM, Science, Teacher Development, Teacher Opportunities
Join NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Education Office for an education conference being held Oct. 17, 2009, near Pasadena, Calif. The conference will celebrate the most prominent and vital feature in solar system, the sun.
During this day-long conference, experts from the Voyager, Ulysses, Genesis, STEREO and Earth-exploring missions will be on hand to discuss the structure and content of the sun; current study of its composition; solar cycles; the importance of the sun to Earth; and the inner and outer heliosphere. The presenters will discuss and demonstrate activities that can be used in the classroom to promote a greater appreciation of the inspirational aspects of space exploration.
This conference is open to all formal and informal educators interested in Earth and space science and exploration. Students in high school and college can also attend.
Pre-registration is required. Participants must register by Oct. 5, 2009. Walk-up registration will not be possible for this conference.
For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/centers/jpl/education/sunconf-20090921.html
Filed under: Aeronautics, Astronomy, Cool Science, Educational Materials, NASA, STEM, Science, Webcasts
In 1969, millions of people around the world gathered around their television sets to watch NASA make history by putting the first man on the moon. Now, forty years later, we will gather around the television set again to watch the beginning of NASA’s Return to the Moon.
On Oct. 9, 2009, at approximately 7:30 a.m. EDT, the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, along with the spent Centaur upper stage rocket will impact a permanently shadowed crater near the lunar south pole.
Following four minutes behind, LCROSS will fly through the debris plume created by the Centaur. LCROSS will collect and relay data back to LCROSS mission control at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California before impacting the surface and creating a second debris plume. The impacts will provide a wealth of data that will help scientists determine the contents of these permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles.
Viewing parties are planned across the country to witness this historic event. To see a list of events taking place in your area, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/impact/event_index.html
For those unable to attend an event in person, NASA TV will stream live video. The broadcast will be available online at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
For this historic day, NASA has created the LCROSS Impact Kit. This kit is full of videos and educational materials to inspire and engage your students in America’s return to the moon. The kit is available on the Web at http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/impactkit/
Filed under: Cool Science, Educational Materials, K-12, Lesson Plans, NASA, STEM, Science, Teacher Opportunities | Tags: Satellite Imaging
Middle school educators are invited to join NASA for the International Space Station EarthKAM Fall 2009 Mission on Oct. 20-23, 2009. Find out more about this exciting opportunity that allows students to take pictures of Earth from a digital camera on board the International Space Station.
ISS EarthKAM is a NASA-sponsored project that provides stunning, high-quality photographs of Earth taken from the space shuttle and International Space Station. Since 1996, ISS EarthKAM students have taken thousands of photographs of Earth by using the World Wide Web to direct a digital camera on select spaceflights and, currently, on the International Space Station.
For more information about the project and to register for the upcoming mission, visit the ISS EarthKAM Home Page: http://www.EarthKAM.ucsd.edu
Filed under: Aeronautics, Astronomy, Cool Science, NASA, STEM, Science, Student Opportunities
NASA Education has launched a new Web page that serves as a starting point to learn about jobs at NASA. Visit the site to learn more about scientists, technical experts, engineers, mathematicians, physicists, accountants, attorneys, astronauts, educators, pilots, astronomers and experts in many other fields.
Career information on the site includes the following:
– Opportunities for students to intern at NASA
– Programs for visiting faculty
– Profiles of NASA employees
– Descriptions of jobs at NASA
– Posters and resources with career information
– Descriptions of NASA education programs
– Career pages with content sorted by grade levels.
Visit the new NASA Education Careers Web page at http://www.nasa.gov/education/careers
Filed under: Aeronautics, Astronomy, Educational Materials, K-12, Lesson Plans, NASA, STEM, Science, Teacher Development, Teacher Opportunities
NASA’s Digital Learning Network presents a series of videoconferences to assist educators in staying current on NASA education resources and related products.
During each event, product producers, authors and experts will demonstrate their materials designed to optimize awareness and understanding of science concepts. Instructional objectives, accessing the materials and primary contacts for the materials will also be discussed. During the videoconferences, participants will be able to submit questions to the presenter that will be addressed during the presentation.
In the coming months, the following topics will be covered:
— Earth Science Week Products: Sept. 30, 2009, 4-5 p.m. EDT
— Waste Limitation Management and Recycling Design Challenge: Oct. 28, 2009, 4-5 p.m. EDT
— NASAimages.org & eClips: Nov. 18, 2009, 4-5 p.m. EST
— Exploring Space Through Math: Dec. 16, 2009, 4-5 p.m. EST
— STS-131 Robotics: Jan. 27, 2010, 4-5 p.m. EST
— NASA Fit Explorers Feb. 24, 2010, 4-5 p.m. EST
— NASA eProfessional Development Network — Robotics Course: March 31, 2010, 4-5 p.m. EDT
— MoonWorld: April 28, 2010, 4-5 p.m. EDT
— On the Moon: May 26, 2010, 4-5 p.m. EDT
For more information about these videoconferences and to sign up online, visit http://dln.nasa.gov/dln/content/webcast/
Filed under: Astronomy, Cool Science, Higher Education, K-12, NASA, OMSI, STEM, Science, Student Opportunities, Teacher Opportunities
PORTLAND, Ore. (Sept. 21, 2009) The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) will offer space exploration enthusiasts the opportunity to watch the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) crash-land on the Moon Friday, October 9, 2009. The LCROSS will crash into the Moon in order to gather data from the 6-mile-high impact cloud it will create. OMSI will be showing the impact in the auditorium live via satellite on NASA TV beginning at 3:30 a.m., with the impact scheduled at 4:30 a.m. PDT. Admission for the televised impact is free.
The Mission Objectives of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) include confirming the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the Moon’s South Pole. The identification of water is very important to the future of human activities on the Moon. LCROSS will excavate the permanently dark floor of one of the Moon’s polar craters with two heavy impactors in 2009 to test the theory that ancient ice lies buried there. The impact will eject material from the crater’s surface to create a plume that specialized instruments will be able to analyze for the presence of water (ice and vapor), hydrocarbons and hydrated materials.
On October 9, 2009 at 4:30 a.m. Pacific time, the Centaur upper stage of the rocket that launched Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and LCROSS to the Moon will crash in to moon crater at the south pole, Cabeus A, as the LCROSS spacecraft watches. Four minutes later, LCROSS itself will crash at the same spot. The impact will be watched by numerous spacecraft and both amateur and professional ground-based observatories. On that date the impact site will be in darkness but the ejecta plume, predicted to be approximately 6 miles in height, will launch into sunlight.
The impact will be observed by several space-based observatories, including the newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope; GeoEye, a private spacecraft that provides high-resolution satellite imagery; Odin, a Swedish radio astronomy satellite; NASA’s Earth Observing 1 technology demonstration satellite; and LCROSS’s sister mission Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. In addition, numerous professional ground-based telescopes will be watching, including Keck, Gemini, and IRTF in Hawaii; Magdalena Ridge and Apache Point Observatories in New Mexico, and MMT in Arizona.
For more information about the LCROSS mission, including images and timeline, visit: http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/
Please note that the LCROSS impact date and time is subject to change by NASA.
ABOUT OMSI
Founded in 1944, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) is one of the nation’s leading science museums, a world-class tourist attraction, and an award-winning educational resource for the kid in each of us. OMSI is located at 1945 SE Water Avenue, Portland, OR 97214. For general information, call 503.797.4000 or visit http://www.omsi.edu
Filed under: Astronomy, Educational Materials, Higher Education, K-12, NASA, STEM, Science, Webcasts
In 1969, millions of people around the world gathered around their television sets to watch NASA make history by putting the first man on the moon. Now, forty years later, we will gather around the television set again to watch the beginning of NASA’s Return to the Moon.
On Oct. 9, 2009, at 7:32 a.m. EDT, the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, along with the spent Centaur upper stage rocket will impact a permanently shadowed crater near the lunar south pole.
Following four minutes behind, the Shepherding Spacecraft, or LCROSS, will fly through the debris plume created by the Centaur. LCROSS will collect and relay data back to LCROSS mission control at NASA’s Ames Research Center before impacting the surface and creating a second debris plume. The impacts will provide a wealth of data that will help determine the contents of these permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles.
For this historic day, NASA has created the LCROSS Impact Kit. This kit is full of videos and educational materials to inspire and engage your students in America’s return to the moon. The kit is available on the Web at http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/impactkit/.
Tune in on Monday, Sept. 21, 2009, at http://dln.nasa.gov/dln/content/webcast/ for a discussion of the contents of the impact tool kit and suggestions about how to use it in your classroom or in your community.
Filed under: Aeronautics, Competitions, K-12, NASA, STEM, Science, Student Opportunities | Tags: Rocketry
Registration is open for the Team America Rocketry Challenge 2010, a national model rocket competition for U.S. students in grades 7 through 12. Thousands of students compete each year in the Team America Rocketry Challenge, the world’s largest model rocket contest.
Teams of three to 10 students are challenged to design, build and fly a model rocket that will climb to 825 feet with a raw egg payload and stay aloft for 40 to 45 seconds. The payload must then return to earth unbroken. Cash prizes are awarded to the top finishers. NASA invites top teams to participate in their Student Launch Initiative, an advanced rocketry program.
Participation is limited to the first 750 teams who register by Nov. 30, 2009. For more information, visit http://www.rocketcontest.org/
Filed under: Educational Materials, Educator Kit, K-12, Lesson Plans, NASA, STEM, Science
NASA and DESIGN SQUAD® have developed an online workshop for educators and afterschool leaders to build their skills and confidence in guiding kids through engineering activities like those found in the On the Moon Educator Guide.
Completing this self-guided online workshop will allow educators to gain insight and strategies for strengthening critical-thinking skills and exciting their students about using the design process to arrive at solutions.
In this self-guided workshop, participants will:
– Experience the design process in action. Learn and reflect on ways to use the design process to tap into students’ problem-solving skills and creativity.
– Watch an engineering activity. See how easy it is to integrate the design process into hands-on activities in the classroom.
– Get resources. Discover a variety of engineering activities from NASA and DESIGN SQUAD® for students in grades K-12.
For more information about the online workshop, visit http://pbskids.org/designsquad/parentseducators/workshop/welcome.html
To download the On the Moon Educator Guide, visit http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/materials/listbytype/On_the_Moon_Guide.html
The Aerospace Education Services Program (AESP) desires to identify and provide seed funding to new and existing programs that will support AESP by adapting an AESP provided curriculum Toolkit to the standards and needs of the recipient’s state and implementing exemplary, sustainable, pre-service or in-service educator, professional development courses based upon this curriculum.
The Foundation anticipates that ten to twenty awards will be made under this CAN. The total pool of funds available to award is $300,000. The Foundation anticipates that it will reissue this CAN on a yearly basis.
Competition is open to individuals qualified to serve as principal investigators at colleges, universities and non-profit organizations that are members in good standing of the Space Grant program as of the proposal due date listed in this announcement.
AESP website: http://csats.psu.edu/aesp.htm CAN Release Date: May 4, 2009 Proposals Due: October 9, 2009 Anticipated Award Date: November 20, 2009 Program Website: http://www.spacegrant.org/aesp/
Full text of the AESP Implementation Mini Grant CAN here: AESP Implementation Mini-Grants CAN 2009
