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Date: January 25, 2011

Title: Bringing NASA into your Classroom

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Podcaster: Tony Rice

Link: Tony’s blog: http://utprosim.com/

Description: Today I’ll be talking about resources available to everyone whether they be formal educators like teachers in a classroom or informal ones like scout leaders, astronomy clubs doing public outreach, museum personnel putting together programs, home-school parents, or just amateur astronomers sharing their love of the night sky with the neighbors.

Bio: I’m an amateur astronomer from Cary, North Carolina and a volunteer in the NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador Program. I get to go into schools, visit with scout programs and talk about space.

Today’s sponsor: This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” is sponsored by — no one. We still need sponsors for many days in 2011, so please consider sponsoring a day or two. Just click on the “Donate” button on the lower left side of this webpage, or contact us at signup@365daysofastronomy.org.

Transcript:

I’m Tony Rice. I’m an amateur astronomer from Cary, North Carolina and a volunteer in the NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador Program. I get to go into schools, visit with scout programs and talk about space. The goal is to get kids, and adults, excited about science through astronomy and space exploration. But I can’t and don’t do this by myself.

Today I’ll be talking about resources available to everyone whether they be formal educators like teachers in a classroom or informal ones like scout leaders, astronomy clubs doing public outreach, museum personnel putting together programs, home-school parents, or just amateur astronomers sharing their love of the night sky with the neighbors.

As I’ve worked with educators, particularly elementary teachers, I hear about the challenges of putting together engaging activities in math and science, particularly with standardized reading test dates looming. Also, I’ve learned that some elementary teachers are less comfortable with STEM topics than they are reading and writing. But there is help out there.

You not be aware of the wealth of lesson plans, activities, and other resources freely available from NASA and other U.S. Government agencies. These resources range from experiments you can try, videos you can share, to complete lesson plans around a particular science or math topic. Most are adaptable to work in a classroom situation or even a cub scout meeting.

One great resource that can get overlooked is NASA TV. it’s 4 channels of programming available on the web. The primary or as they call it, public channel is also available on most cable and satellite systems.

The public channel includes educational program and news from around NASA.

The Media channel which is aimed at providing content for news organizations with interviews with astronauts and program mangers but provides some great live views of mission control and the ISS, the Education channel which airs blocks of NASA produced educational programs broken into grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Content covers not only space travel but physics, math, aeronautics, geology and biology to name a few and there is even programming in Spanish.

For example, today’s block of programming on the educational channel includes
* NASA eClips on “ The Launch Abort System and g-Forces” aimed at high school students
* “The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter” and “Going Green: What Does That Mean?“ for elementary students,
* “Home Improvement, Space Station Style” for Junior High and Middle School students.
* the NASA Connect Series has a half hour look at Algebra and optics and how they make the The Hubble Space Telescope and Next Generation Space Telescope possible.
* For later elementary , the hour long NASA Sci Files episode “The Case of the Zany Animal Antics” which looks at the life cycles, habitats, and migratory patterns of animals.

It’s not all about space.

Additionally there is live streaming video from the space station as well as an audio only stream from the current mission available. I like to bring up live ISS video while an audience is filing in before a presentation. It gives everyone something interesting to watch and always brings up “hey, what is that astronaut doing there?” questions and general oohs and ahs of the view of Earth from station.

If the live programming schedule doesn’t work with your schedule, many of these programs are available as downloadable clips usually around 4 – 7 minutes in length or many shows may be recorded for educational use. These programs are a great way to show kids how what they are studying is being used today and tomorrow.

A few months ago I used videos and other materials from the “Fit Explorer Challenge” a joint project between NASA and the Presidential Council on Physical Fitness, in a program at my local library. We talked about the training process astronauts go through and then went through exercises the kids could do at home. The room the library normally used for story time was turned into a sea of jumping and running kids.

Another great resource that you may not know about is NASA’s Educator Resource Centers. Located at NASA field centers around the country, these centers are stocked with posters, DVDs, brochures and educational kits. Resources can be copied there, some are available to take and some are kits that can be checked out for use in your classroom. Centers are available at the Langley Research Center and Wallops Flight Center in Virginia, Marshall Spaceflight Center in Alabama, Dryden Flight Research Center, Ames Research Center, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, Glenn Research Center in Ohio, Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, Johnson Space Center in Texas, Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. In general you should contact the center closest to you but you can contact any ERC for specific requests. Johnson Space Center is a good contact for the human space flight, JPL for Mars missions, Kennedy Space Center for launch operations, and so on. Don’t forget to visit the Kennedy Space Center and it’s ERC when vacationing in Florida. It’s only about an hour drive from Orlando.

Another great resource, especially for interactive activities you can do with kids is the NASA Night Sky Network, a coalition of amateur astronomy clubs that do public outreach. Their website maintains a library of small projects you can do, most with very basic, inexpensive supplies and includes a search where you can filter by the age of your audience and subjects like the solar system, telescopes, the moon, light pollution, the life cycle of stars and more.

A few weeks ago I used a night sky network activity with a 3rd grade class to create lunar craters with small rocks in pie tins filled with flour. A flashlight at various angles not only helped the kids better understand lunar phases but demonstrated how the lunar terminus gives us great views craters and valleys and why a full moon isn’t the best time to observe the moon.

NASA isn’t the only government agency in the outreach business. Many offer activities on a kids section and resources on a teacher section of their websites. For example, The National Institute of Health has curriculum supplements for teachers. NOAA, The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has environmental and weather. Even the CIA has some great cryptography puzzles on their website for kids and materials for teachers that help tie math and history together in a way you may not have thought of before.

The Smithsonian Institution isn’t just a neat place to visit when in Washington DC. Their website has an excellent search engine to help you find complete lesson plans based around their collection. It’s even cross referenced to national and state curriculum standards. Teachers can go there with a curriculum goal to check off on and leave with lesson and activities ready to go.

I hope this has given some ideas for educators (remember that includes not only classroom educators but anyone who shares their interest in science with others) to not only better engage with kids but also make their job a little easier.

For more information on resources that are available, visit my blog at http://utprosim.com. You’ll find a link to a PDF files with a ton of links to resources. Bookmark my blog while you are there, I share astronomy outreach ideas and just general spacey stuff that might be useful in keeping kids (and everyone else) interested in space, astronomy and science in general.

End of podcast:

365 Days of Astronomy
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