ED33C-01 13:40h
Packaging a successful NASA mission to reach a large audience within a small budget. Earth's Dynamic Space: Solar-Terrestrial Physics & NASA's Polar Mission
To showcase the on-going and wide-ranging scope of the Polar science discoveries, the Polar science team has created a one-stop shop for a thorough introduction to geospace physics, in the form of a DVD with supporting website. The DVD, Earth's Dynamic Space: Solar-Terrestrial Physics & NASA's Polar Mission, can be viewed as an end-to-end product or split into individual segments and tailored to lesson plans. Capitalizing on the Polar mission and its amazing science return, the Polar team created an exciting multi-use DVD intended for audiences ranging from a traditional classroom and after school clubs, to museums and science centers. The DVD tackles subjects such as the aurora, the magnetosphere and space weather, whilst highlighting the science discoveries of the Polar mission. This platform introduces the learner to key team members as well as the science principles. Dramatic visualizations are used to illustrate the complex principles that describe Earth’s dynamic space. In order to produce such a wide-ranging product on a shoe-string budget, the team poured through existing NASA resources to package them into the Polar story, and visualizations were created using Polar data to complement the NASA stock footage. Scientists donated their time to create and review scripts in order to make this a real team effort, working closely with the award winning audio-visual group at JHU/Applied Physics Laboratory. The team was excited to be invited to join NASA’s Sun-Earth Day 2005 E/PO program and the DVD will be distributed as part of the supporting educational packages.
http://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/polar/space-weather-dvd
ED33C-02 INVITED 13:55h
PUMAS (Practical Uses of Math And Science) - Low Cost, High Impact
PUMAS is an on-line journal, aimed at giving pre-college teachers brief examples showing how math and science topics taught in K-12 classes can be used in interesting settings, including everyday life. The concept is a simple one - (1) ask scientists, engineers, and other content experts to write up their favorite examples of practical uses, (2) ask the authors to key their examples to the National Standards and Benchmarks, so the material is grade-appropriate and useful in the classroom, (3) have each example peer-reviewed by at least one scientist with a relevant background, and at least one teacher at an appropriate grade level, helping keep an emphasis on quality, and (4) disseminate the examples widely and inexpensively through the PUMAS Web Site (http://pumas.jpl.nasa.gov). PUMAS examples may be activities, anecdotes, descriptions of "neat ideas," formal exercises, puzzles, or demonstrations; each one is a gem, written in the voice of its author. The PUMAS site also provides opportunities for feedback on individual examples and on the journal as a whole. As with most scientific journals, the writing, reviewing, and editing efforts are volunteered; they leverage the "community service" offered by so many teachers and scientists. We have streamlined all aspects of the example submission, review, and search processes so participants can contribute at a high level, with a minimum of extraneous effort. The primary PUMAS operating expenses cover Web Site technical maintenance and computer security. The PUMAS site receives several thousand unique queries per week, and publishes an average of about one new example per month. Maintaining a strong user base has been helped by endorsements from such organizations as the NSTA and NCTM. To contributors we offer an avenue for making a real impact on pre-college education with a relatively small time commitment, and the opportunity for peer-reviewed publication. We are always looking for good examples of the Practical Uses of Math And Science. This work is performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
http://pumas.jpl.nasa.gov
ED33C-03 INVITED 14:10h
STUDENTS AND TEACHERS EXPLORING LIVE THE LIMITS OF LIFE ON EARTH WITH A NASA/SETI EXPEDITION TO THE HIGHEST LAKES ON EARTH
"Life at the Extreme" is an education and public outreach (E/PO) project that engaged teachers and 4-12th grade students (an in part, Prek-3rd grade students) in an internet-based, virtual expedition with scientists as they conducted experiments in a unique planetary analog environment in the Bolivian High-Andes at nearly 6,000 m (~20,000ft). Through high altitude diving and sampling, they explored the Licancabur volcano summit lake, which is one of the closest analogs to ancient lakes on Mars. Their goal was to characterize the environment and to study the defense strategies of life against extreme physical conditions in order to understand the biological potential of Mars and prepare future planetary missions. This "virtual field" was in the form of an interactive web site, live interactive discussions, a live video webcast with the San Francisco Exploratorium, and videotapes. Through this medium, about 2,700 students, 90 schools and teachers were able to directly participate and extend their knowledge of scientific processes as they explored an extreme and unique terrestrial environment. In the weeks leading up to the expedition, and during in-the-field activities, students were able to communicate with scientists as they prepared for and conducted scientific investigations. The general public could follow the expedition as well on the web. Overall, the website received ~70,000 hits from all over the world during the time of the expedition. Allowing this access to scientists as they performed their investigations proved invaluable as students understood the implications of scientific work. The broader impact of this experience provided ground work for other educational institutions to conduct similar activities with leading scientists and bridge the gap that often exists between scientists and education. The project was conducted in partnership with the NASA's Ames Research Center's expedition to the Licancabur volcano, located on the border between Chile and Bolivia and is the location of one of the least explored lakes in the world. K-12 educators played a key roll in the development and implementation of curriculum for this project. In 2002, a teacher accompanied the scientific team to the summit to document their research for the benefit of all k-12 educators both as the exploration occurs and as an ongoing educational enquiry. The virtual field experience was funded through an IDEAS (The Initiative to Develop Education through Astronomy and Space Science) grant. The 2002-03, and 2003-04 virtual field experience can be found at: http://www.extremeenvironment.com.
http://www.extremeenvironment.com
ED33C-04 14:25h
Southeast Regional Clearinghouse(SERCH)Mini-grants:Big Impacts on Future Explorers
SERCH is one of seven regional Broker/Facilitator programs funded by NASA's Space Science Mission Directorate. Our purpose is to promote space science awareness and to enhance interest in science, math, and technology through the use of NASA's mission data, information, and educational products. We work closely with educators and NASA-funded scientists in 14 states (AL, AR, DC, FL, GA, KY, LA, MD, MS, NC, PR, SC/VI, TN, and VA) throughout the southeastern U.S. to share what NASA is doing in space science. Every year SERCH dedicates money from its budget to support education/outreach initiatives that increase the awareness and understanding of the four major scientific themes, or forums from NASA's space science program: 1) Sun-Earth Connection, 2) Solar System Exploration, 3) Structure and Evolution of the Universe, and 4) Astronomical Search for Origins and Planetary Systems. SERCH is particularly interested in proposals for education/outreach efforts that establish strong and lasting partnerships between the space science and education communities and that support the NASA's education mission. We encourage innovative, inter-disciplinary teams involving both scientists and educators to apply. These peer-reviewed grants are awarded for a period of one year in amounts usually ranging from $5,000 to $10,000. Three examples of highly successful previous grant awards include: 1) Teaching Astronomy and Space Science in Kentucky (KY): Designed to improve knowledge of science core concepts and teaching skills in astronomy and space science and increased expertise in achieving current Kentucky academic expectations; 2) Development of Multi-media Space Science Education/Tutorial Modules (MD): The objective is the production of three "turn-key" internet-based multi-media student tutorial modules to enable the mostly part-time professors/instructors teaching introductory astronomy in community colleges to add exciting and cutting-edge topics to their existing astronomy courses; and 3) Space Science the Special Way (SSS Way) (VA): This conference focused on solutions to the challenges faced when accommodating inclusive earth/space science instruction to students from the following special needs groups: blind and visually impaired, deaf and hard of hearing and the learning disabled.
http://serch.cofc.edu/serch
ED33C-05 14:40h
Earth's Earliest Ecosystems in the Classroom: The Use of Microbial Mats to Illustrate and Demonstrate General Principles of Scientific Inquiry and Microbial Ecology
Microbial mats are living examples of the most ancient biological communities on Earth. As Earth's earliest ecosystems, they are centrally important to understanding the history of life on our planet and are useful models for the search for life elsewhere. As relatively small (but complete) ecosystems, microbial mats are also extremely useful for educational activities. Mats may be used to demonstrate a wide variety of concepts in general and microbial ecology, including the biogeochemical cycling of elements, photosynthesis and respiration, and the and the origin of the Earth's present oxygen containing atmosphere. Microbial mats can be found in a number of common environments accessible to teachers, and laboratory microbial mats can even be constructed using materials purchased from biological supply houses. With funding from NASA's Exobiology program, provided as a supplement to our research funding, we are developing curriculum and web-based activities centered on the use of microbial mats as tools for demonstrating general principles in ecology, and the scientific process. A web site with useful background information and links is now on-line. The curriculum, now in the pilot phase, is an integrated module having Science, Math and Language Art threads. A "Web Lab", featuring living mats maintained in a mini-aquarium, and complete with remotely-operable instrumentation not commonly available in classrooms, will be available to classrooms over the Internet. Using that system, the responses of the mat community to changes in environmental parameters, (e.g., light, pH, flow, and temperature) can be monitored using microsensors. Students will be able to develop hypotheses and propose experiments in the Web Lab to test them. Data from these experiments will be posted in real time and students will be able to collect the data, analyze it, and post results and conclusions back to the web page in a true implementation of the scientific inquiry process. The web site will soon feature a four to five minute animated feature of an imaginary voyage into a microbial mat using a computer generated microscopic submarine set against videomicroscopy of real mats. The miniature explorers will point out features of interest as they measure some of the same parameters measured by researchers in our lab. Readouts on board the miniature submersible will be used to teach data graphing and analysis concepts. Some of this animation, and other materials generated by this project, are also being incorporated into the traveling museum exhibit "Alien Earths".
http://exobiology.arc.nasa.gov/ssx/microecobiogeo/
ED33C-06 14:55h
NASA's Small Grants Programs for Education and Public Outreach in Space Science
Over the past seven years, NASA's space science program has implemented what may well be the largest single program in astronomy and space science education ever undertaken. An important part of the overall program have been the small grants programs for education and public outreach (E/PO). These offer a way for many scientists not directly involved in major space science missions to contribute to education and public outreach efforts. This paper provides an overview of the small E/PO grants programs associated with the Guest Observer programs for the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope, the Initiative to Develop Education through Astronomy and Space Science (IDEAS) program and the Research Opportunities in Space Science (ROSS) program. Characteristics of successful proposals are discussed along with representative examples of scientist participation in current projects in the areas of formal education, museum exhibits, planetarium show, and public outreach programs.
ED33C-07 15:10h
Making An Impact With A Shoestring Through Partnerships
Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) programs for most science investigations are extremely small parts of already small grants. However, the effective use of partnerships and leveraging multiple programs together can allow E/PO programs on a shoestring budget to make a significant impact. We will present how we have used partnerships and multiple E/PO programs to provide the best way to use the resources of smaller projects. Some of the partnerships we will highlight include: NASA E/PO programs such as STEREO-IMPACT and RHESSI; NASA OSS Education Forums; The Lawrence Hall of Science GEMS network; volunteer scientist involvement; and others. We will also discuss the importance of evaluation in determining the impact of the programs as well as the difficulties involved in finding good partnerships.
http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/segway