NASA Host Educator Workshop, Events in Richmond

RICHMOND, Va. – Around 70 educators from seven different Virginia school districts will be participating in a NASA-sponsored professional development workshop on Saturday, Feb. 9, at the MathScience Innovation Center in Richmond, Va.

Sen. Tim Kaine and NASA Langley’s Center Director Lesa Roe, will kick off the 2013 Aerospace Educator Workshop at 9 a.m. They, along with Director of the MathScience Innovation Center Dr. Hollee Freeman, will be available immediately after the opening for interviews with the media.

Between 9 a.m. and noon, aerospace education specialists from NASA’s Langley ResearchCenter in Hampton will share information about NASA educational resources and hands-on activities that can be used in the classroom to engage students inSTEM education.

This aerospace educator workshop is part of an ongoing effort by NASA to make investments in education and in the development of the nation’s future aerospace workforce. Through partnerships with the state, including the Virginia Space Grant Consortium, and research programs with Virginia’s universities as well as K-12 education programs, NASA reached more than 1,600 teachers and thousands of students in a number of Virginia events in 2012.

In another NASA Langley-sponsored event on Friday, Feb. 8, at Richmond’s Science Museum of Virginia, the public is invited to “Mars Exploration Day” from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event will include exhibits, “Science on a Sphere” demonstrations and engineering-related hands-on activities that showcase last August’s successful landing of the Mars Science Laboratory mission’s Curiosity Rover.

For more information about NASA’s Langley Research Center, please go to: http://www.nasa.gov/langley

To learn more about the MathScience Innovation Center, go to: http://www.msinnovation.info

For more information about the Science Museum of Virginia, visit: http://www.smv.org