NASA Education Express Message Oct. 21, 2010

Check out the following NASA opportunities for the education community. Full descriptions are listed below.

NASA Kids in Micro-g Challenge
Audience: 5-8 Educators and Students
Deadline: Dec. 8, 2010

2011 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship
Audience: K-12 Educators
Deadline: Jan. 4, 2011

NASA Launches the NASA Explorer Schools Project
Audience: 5-12 Educators

NASA Education Materials Featured on Howtosmile.org
Audience: K-12 and Informal Educators

New Educational Materials Available at NASA.gov
Women at NASA Video — Grades K-12
Earth Math — Grades 6-12
Space Math V — Grades 9-12
Do-It-Yourself Podcast Brochure — Grades 5-12
Hurricane Katrina: A Problem-Based Learning Module — Grades 5-12

NASA Kids in Micro-g Challenges Students to Design an Experiment for the International Space Station

NASA Kids in Micro- g is a student experiment design challenge geared toward grades 5-8. Its purpose is to give students a hands-on opportunity to design an experiment or simple demonstration that could be performed both in the classroom and by astronaut crews aboard the International Space Station.

Experiment challenge winners and runners-up will be selected by a panel consisting of microgravity scientists, International Space Station operations and NASA education personnel, and classroom teachers. The national winner and five runners-up will have their experiments conducted by the astronauts aboard the International Space Station in the March-May 2011 timeframe.

NASA will be accepting experiment proposals through Dec. 8, 2010.

For more information about the NASA Kids in Micro- g Challenge, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/nlab/experimentchallenge.html. Be sure to take a look at the Frequently Asked Questions section to help answer questions you may have as you develop your proposal. You may submit your own questions as well.

If you need further assistance about this opportunity, please contact the ISS Payloads Office at jsc-iss-payloads-helpline@mail.nasa.gov or call 281-244-6187.

2011 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship

Applications are currently available for the 2011 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Program. This program is open to current public or private elementary and secondary mathematics, technology and science classroom teachers with demonstrated excellence in teaching. Applications are due Jan. 4, 2011.

Selected teachers spend a school year in Washington, D.C., sharing their expertise with policy makers. Einstein Fellows may serve with one of several government agency sponsors such as the Department of Energy, NASA and the National Science Foundation.

Applicants must be U.S. citizens and be currently employed full-time in a public or private elementary or secondary school or school district. Applicants must have been teaching full-time in a public or private elementary or secondary school for at least five of the last seven years.

For more information about this opportunity and to apply online, visit http://www.trianglecoalition.org/fellows/einapp.htm.

Inquiries about the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Program should be directed to Program Manager Kathryn Culbertson at culbertsonk@triangle-coalition.org.

NASA Launches the NASA Explorer Schools Project!

Connect your middle or high school students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics classes to the exciting world of NASA exploration and discovery by joining the NASA Explorer Schools project.

Incorporate authentic learning experiences designed around NASA’s unique missions into your classroom to provide relevance to the curriculum by linking STEM classroom topics to real-world NASA activities. NES provides teachers access to a variety of exciting, free NASA resources that will satisfy curriculum standards and stimulate learning of basic and advanced STEM concepts.

Are you interested in learning more about participating in the NASA Explorer Schools project? Visit the NES Virtual Campus http://explorerschools.nasa.gov/ to read more about project features and register for the project by clicking on the “NES Registration Form” link in the “Get Involved” section.

NASA Education Materials Featured on the Howtosmile.org Website

NASA educational materials are available on the new Howtosmile.org website. Launched by the University of California, Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science, the Howtosmile.org website is an online collection of thousands of hands-on interactive science and math activities dedicated to making learning exciting and engaging for everyone. All activities at www.howtosmile.org are freely accessible and never require a registration or subscription.

Howtosmile.org brings together a consortium of science museums across the country to empower educators working with school-aged children in science, mathematics, engineering and technology. The website provides a digital infrastructure to allow informal science institutions to broaden their reach to informal educators across the U.S.

Howtosmile.org spotlights hands-on and interactive activities, both physical and virtual, that involve doing and learning. Activities take many forms, from downloadable lesson plans to field trip activities, how-to videos and online interactive games.

Howtosmile.org is funded by the National Science Foundation as part of the National Science Digital Library. The website is a joint project of UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science, the Exploratorium, the New York Hall of Science, Science Museum of Minnesota, Children’s Museum of Houston, and the Association of Science-Technology Centers.

Visit the new website at http://howtosmile.org/. To find NASA materials on the website, do a keyword search for NASA. Questions about the Howtosmile.org site should be directed to Sherry Hsi at SherryH@berkeley.edu.

New Educational Materials Available at NASA.gov

The Educational Materials section of NASA’s Web site offers classroom activities, educator guides, posters and other types of resources that are available for use in the classroom. Materials are listed by type, grade level and subject. The following items are now available for downloading.

Women at NASA Video — Grades K-12

NASA has many possibilities for women who study science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This video gives girls ideas of how they can prepare to work at NASA by starting young. It also shows clips of women who work at NASA.

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/materials/listbytype/Women_at_NASA.html

Earth Math — Grades 6-12

This booklet provides many of the quantitative skills your students will need to make sense out of climate change. To think quantitatively about climate change, students must become fluent in working with Celsius and Fahrenheit temperature scales. Students also should understand the difference between watts, kilowatts and kilowatt hours; tons and gigatons; and BTUs and tons of carbon dioxide. All of these units appear in news stories about climate change and human impacts on the environment. The problems in this guide include basic mathematics, algebra, geometry and some trigonometric functions. The one-page assignments are accompanied by one-page answer keys.

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/materials/listbytype/Earth_Math.html

Space Math V — Grades 9-12

These activities comprise a series of 87 practical mathematics applications in space science. This collection of activities is based on a weekly series of problems distributed to teachers during the 2008-2009 school year. The problems in this booklet investigate space phenomena, space travel and mathematics applications such as planetary nebulae, collapsing gas clouds, space shuttle launch trajectory, evaluating functions, and differentiation. The problems are authentic glimpses of modern science and engineering issues, often involving actual research data. Each word problem includes background information. The one-page assignments are accompanied by one-page teachers answer keys.

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/materials/listbytype/Space_Math_V.html

Do-It-Yourself Podcast Brochure — Grades 5-12

NASA’s Do-It-Yourself Podcast is a topical collection of downloadable video and audio clips featuring NASA astronauts, scientists and/or engineers. Teachers and students can mix and mash the video and audio clips to create their own podcasts. The brochure details how to access the DIY Podcast tool online, defines “podcast,” lists the steps for using DIY Podcast and explains how to use the DIY Podcast blog.

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/materials/listbytype/DIY_Brochure.html

Hurricane Katrina: A Problem-Based Learning Module — Grades 5-12

Because it recognizes the importance of U.S. coastal areas to the nation’s economy, the U.S. National Ocean Service has formed a task force that is studying the trends and impacts of hurricanes on coastal regions. They have invited your students to participate. In this activity, students are tasked with conducting an Earth systems analysis of Hurricane Katrina that will help answer the question “Is global warming causing an increase in hurricane frequency and intensity?”

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/materials/listbytype/Hurricane_Katrina.html