NASA: Free Education Webinar Series from the Aerospace Education Services Project

The Aerospace Education Services Project is presenting a series of free webinars through May 2012. All webinars can be accessed online. Join aerospace education specialists to learn about activities, lesson plans, educator guides and resources to bring NASA into your classroom.

Here Comes Saturn (Grades K-5)
Feb. 28, 2012, 4 – 5 p.m. EST.

Aerospace education specialist Tom Estill will discuss how you can find Saturn in the sky, how to put together a Saturn Star Party and how to make a model of Saturn. Participants will also learn how to access a variety of NASA lesson plans, information, current pictures from the Cassini spacecraft and NASA videos related to Saturn.

Designing Solar System Models (Grades K-12)
March 5, 2012, 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. EST

Aerospace education specialist Susan Kohler will demonstrate lessons that engage students in visualizing the comparative sizes and distances of solar system bodies by making solar system objects to scale using common objects, walking off the distances between planets and participating in Web-based sun/Earth scale model activities. Lesson plans and strategies will be shared.

Get Ready for Sun-Earth Day 2012 (Grades K-12)
March 6, 2012, 2:30 – 4:30 p.m. EST

Aerospace education Tom Estill will demonstrate how to register for NASA’s Sun-Earth Day 2012, how to safely view the sun and how to access live pictures of the sun from various NASA spacecraft. Participants will also learn about sun-related classroom activities.

Physics Resources for Secondary School (Grades 5-12)
March 8, 2012, 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. EST

Aerospace education specialist John Weis will demonstrate simple activities and resources for teaching physics at middle- and high-school levels. Topics and resources covered will include; Newton’s Laws of Motion, energy, light and gravity. Lesson plans and modification strategies will be discussed.

Food for Thought (Grades 5-8)
March 12, 2012, 3:30 – 5 p.m. EST

Aerospace education Steve Culivan will share “Food for Thought,” a new NASA educator guide designed to explore space food and the nutritional needs of the astronauts that includes a menu of inquiry activities and other resources to address this exciting topic.

Looking at the Sun: NASA’s Missions to the Sun and the 2012 Study of the Venus Transit (Grades K-12)
March 14, 2012, 4:30 – 6 p.m. EST

Aerospace education Rick Varner will discuss the inherent connection between the sun and life on Earth This session is designed to look at NASA’s missions to the study the sun and share sun-Earth activities and resources available for use in the classroom. There will be a particular focus on the Venus Transit taking place June 5-6, 2012, and the Sun-Earth Day activities associated with this event.

Animals in Space (Grades K-5)
March 16, 2012, 10 – 11 a.m. EST

Aerospace education specialist Wil Robertson will instruct teachers on how to use stuffed animals as props in telling the story of the animals that preceded humans in space. The program is geared for teachers in K-5 with a special focus of aligning the topic with the Core Literacy Standards for elementary grades. Web resources will be provided.

Mars Uncovered: Revealing the Geological History of Mars (Grades 5-12)
March 29, 2012, 4 – 5 p.m. EST

Aerospace education specialist Tony Leavitt will share an activity that uses an inquiry-based, critical-thinking approach to studying the surface of Mars like scientists do. This lesson will teach students to examine geologic features of a planetary surface and use relative age-dating techniques to analyze the information and interpret the geologic history.

For more information about the webinars listed above, and to see a full list of webinars taking place through May 2012, visit http://neon.psu.edu/webinars/.

Questions about this series of webinars should be directed to Gwendolyn Wheatle at Gwendolyn.H.Wheatle@nasa.gov.