When students are searching for more information to build their products with the DIY Podcast activity, NASA TV is a good place to look. You can watch live events, including live space station video and mission coverage.

NASA Television is a multichannel, digital service that includes the NASA TV Education Channel, which provides grade-level programming for teachers and students. You may refer to the NASA Television Education File for the monthly programming schedule. Much of the educational programming is theme-related. Monthly themes are listed at the top of the Web page, and a link to the previous month's theme is listed at the bottom of the page.

The education file also provides links to information on sources for viewing NASA TV, how to get digital NASA TV and a list of program descriptions. As you click through the educational programming descriptions, you'll find links to CORE, the Central Operation of Resources for Educators, where you can order many of the videos. You'll also find links to NASA eClips™ that are available for online viewing.

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If you plan to use the DIY Podcast Spacesuits topic module for your students to create their own video podcast, you might consider requiring them to do a science demonstration to enhance their understanding of science concepts and improve the overall quality of their podcast. One of the best ways to understand a concept is to do it, and NASA Education has resources to guide students in creating their own demonstrations. The Spacesuits and Spacewalks Education Activities page lists links to lesson plans. Here are a few highlights:

• Some of the lessons from the Suited for Spacewalking Educator Guide now have demonstration videos. The videos give brief explanations of lesson concepts and the materials and setups needed for demonstrations.

• In the Keeping Your Cool demonstration, students learn how the liquid cooling and ventilation garment works.

• Micrometeoroids and Space Debris helps students explain the need for spacesuits to provide protection from tiny, high-speed particles in space. Students can also learn about the various layers of the spacesuit.

• The Bending Under Pressure demonstration allows students to use inflated balloons and rubber bands to discuss how NASA engineers must construct a spacesuit so that astronauts can work in it when it is pressurized.

• Students demonstrate how surface color affects heat absorption in the Absorption and Radiation demonstration.

As students rehearse and record their demonstrations for a podcast, they gain a deeper, more practical understanding of these science concepts.

As your students engage with NASA content in the DIY Podcast activity, we hope they'll become intrigued with NASA's mission and want to be a part of it. NASA offers fulfilling careers for engineers, mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, chemists, pilots, surgeons, attorneys, accountants and experts in many other exciting fields that may interest your students. NASA Education has launched a new Web page to help students learn about jobs at NASA. It provides career information, such as opportunities for students to intern at NASA, descriptions of jobs at NASA and career resources sorted by grade levels.

NASA Careers

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Most of the DIY Podcast topic modules include audio and video clips from the space station. If your students are looking for background information about the station, you might want to point them to "What is the International Space Station?" This NASA Education homework helper answers questions such as:

·      How old is the space station?

·      What are the parts of the space station?

·      Why is the space station important?

Tidbits of information about the station might fit nicely in a DIY Podcast script that features astronauts on the space station. 

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The Rockets Educator Guide contains new and updated lessons and activities from the original Rockets Educator Guide published in 2003. The Adventures in Rocket Science Educator Guide is especially for informal education venues, with 25 activities for educators and students.

The Engineering Design Challenges: Spacecraft Structures Educator Guide challenges students to think about how a rocket should be strong, yet lightweight. Students build and test a launch structure with these qualities. The Engineering Design Challenges: Thermal Protection Systems Educator Guide calls for students to design, build and test a thermal protection system model that can withstand the heat of a propane torch.

The Lunar Nautics: Designing a Mission to Live and Work on the Moon Educator Guide has 44 activities that engage students in many aspects of planning a mission on the moon -- from initial concepts to building rockets and a model of the lunar lander that will explore the moon.

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DIY Podcast: Rocket Evolution

A good starting point is to pinpoint what you're trying to achieve. Is your focus on sharing knowledge and information, or do you want to demonstrate a concept or activity? Demonstrations are usually enhanced by visual productions. Straight information and content-rich interviews and sound bites are well-suited for audio productions.

Try to anticipate how people are likely to use your product. If you think they'll take time to watch it on their computer or mobile device, video may be the right choice. If it's more likely they would want to listen to your students' podcast while doing other things, audio may be better. Audio works well for multitaskers who might not stop what they're doing just to watch a video. Generally speaking, video is a foreground medium and audio is a background medium.

An important consideration is the time and equipment required to produce your podcast. Audio usually takes much less time to produce than video, and the equipment costs less. Audio files are smaller than video files, which may be a key factor if bandwidth is a concern for you.

The popularity of online video continues to soar. Educators recognize the power of visual communication. Research suggests that more than 80 percent of human learning occurs visually. Combining audio and visual elements leaves a strong, long-lasting impression.

Since the whole point is to engage your students, you may want to ask them which medium they would prefer to create. And remember to create a podcasting rubric before you begin the assignment.

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