Educational Frontier
Since the inception of the Space Program, NASA has made a substantial commitment to education. A highly skilled workforce, competent in mathematics, science, engineering, and technology, is crucial to the success of the Agency. NASA has been an active participant in elementary, secondary, and higher level education for decades. This section features NASA's efforts to motivate teachers, educators, and the community, and to highlight other NASA educational activities and programs.
NASA places great value on hands-on education and encourages programs that offer real-world experience. The NASA Student Involvement Program (NSIP) is a national program that links students directly with NASA's various research, exploration, and discovery missions, and gives them the opportunity to learn science by participating in real missions. This year, high school students from across the country participated in the NSIP flight opportunities competition. Four student teams, their teachers, and advisors traveled to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia, where they launched their experiments aboard a single-stage NASA Orion sounding rocket to an altitude of more than 28 miles. The experiments parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean where they were recovered and returned to the students that same day for analysis. The students investigated materials for future space flight vehicles, studied the efficiency of electric motors during rocket flight, measured atmospheric constituents, and gathered data on the sounding rocket flight environment for a musical composition. Four additional student teams met at Wallops to integrate their experiments in a Space Experiment Module (SEM) for flight on a future Space Shuttle mission. The students worked with Wallops personnel in the Space Shuttle Small Payloads Office to test their experiments before integrating the projects with the carrier for flight. "The purpose of the competition is to provide high school students an opportunity to take what they have learned in the classroom and apply it to the real-world environment," said Lynn Marra, NSIP Officer at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. "We hope that the students involved in the flights see it as a positive experience and pursue careers in science and engineering."
A workshop hosted by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California, brought together two worlds that view the stars differently. A group of 17 elementary and secondary education teachers from Native American reservations in New Mexico and Arizona participated in the two-week workshop held at JPL's Educator Resource Center, in Pomona, California. NASA scientists, engineers, and researchers served as guest speakers at the workshop, which was designed to help the educators develop an action plan that supports standards-based teaching and learning in mathematics, science, technology, and geography, while preserving and celebrating their rich Native American traditions.
Inviting the public on a space odyssey is an annual event for JPL. Once a year, the Center takes education beyond the classroom and invites thousands of people of all ages from around the country to tour the facility for a behind-the-scenes look at NASA's lead center for robotic space exploration. Structured around the themes of technology, Earth, Mars, the solar system, and stars and galaxies, the tour showcases everything from virtual flying lessons, to building your own spacecraft, to having your picture taken with an infrared light, as well as the latest in technological advancements. Those who cannot physically attend the Open House, have the opportunity to share in a virtual tour via webcast. Thousands of people from around the country had the chance to view the webcast, which featured a diverse lineup of scientists and engineers, cutting-edge researchers, and even kids who built their own robots through a NASA program.
Another NASA program is the Solar System Ambassadors Program. Coordinated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, one of this year's events by ambassador volunteers from Victoria, Texas, was a parking lot solar telescope viewing event. The ambassadors invited curious members of the community to come to an area parking lot on Space Day to view sunspots through telescopes equipped with special filters. Space Day is a day devoted to the advancement of science, mathematics, and technology education. Because the Sun is not viewable without the special filters, the event gave the public a unique opportunity to look at it safely and learn more about this mysterious star. The Solar System Ambassadors Program currently consists of 206 ambassadors in 48 states and one U.S. military base in South Korea. Ambassador Program events are held year-round and reach more than 500,000 people annually.
Another event sponsored by NASA proves that learning is fun. Two thousand high school students and 49 student-built robots took over the Los Angeles Sports Arena for the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Southern California Regional Competition. Complete with referees and cheering crowds, the robots duked it out and put on a show demonstrating their ability. FIRST is a non-profit organization whose mission is to generate an interest in science and technology through robotics competitions that include hands-on activities and teamwork.
A new summer program takes a novel approach to outer-classroom research. This year, NASA introduced its Undergraduate Student Research Program (USRP). USRP was designed to increase the nation's science, engineering, mathematics, and technology skill base in undergraduate and graduate programs. The program aims to provide students with challenging goal-oriented research experience designed to stimulate academic interest in these fields. USRP attracted over 1100 applicants from across the country. Some 100 students representing 70 of the nation's colleges and universities participated in the program.
One of the most exciting education initiatives is the new NASAexplores program. Operated by the Marshall Space Flight Center Education Programs Department on behalf of NASA's Aerospace Technology Enterprise and the Human Exploration and Development of Space Enterprise, the program provides free educational materials to educators on a weekly basis. Offered online at http://www.nasaexplores.com, the materials are printable and downloadable. The initiative was founded to generate further interest and understanding in current NASA research within these enterprises by disseminating learning materials via the Internet.
As NASA continues its commitment to space exploration and cutting-edge technological advances that benefit the American people, it will also continue offering programs that serve to inspire, motivate, educate, and prepare generations for an optimistic future.
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