NES Professional Development Web Seminars: Week of Jan 21, 2014

Percentage and Volume: Space Food and Nutrition — How Much is Waste?
Audience: 5-8 and Informal Educators
Event Date: Jan. 21, 2014, at 6:30 p.m. EST

NES Web Seminar — Engineering Design Challenge: Spacecraft Structures 
Audience: 6-8 and Informal Educators
Event Date: Jan. 22, 2014, at 6:30 p.m. EST

For more information and to register online, visit the NSTA Learning Center.

NASA Now: MAVEN: Exploring the Martian Atmosphere

NASA space scientist Jared Espley talks about the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission, or MAVEN, why it’s important to study the Martian atmosphere and what we hope to learn from the mission. NASA Now Minutes are excerpts from a weekly current events program available for classroom use at the NASA Explorer Schools Virtual Campus.

The full-length classroom video will be available on the Virtual Campus beginning Jan. 22, 2014.

Here’s a sneak preview.

NES Professional Development Web Seminars: Week of Jan. 13, 2014

Engineering Design Challenge: Lunar Plant Growth Chamber
Audience: 6-8 and Informal Educators
Event Date: Jan. 13, 2014, at 6:30 p.m. EST

Weather and Climate: Satellite Meteorology
Audience: 6-8 and Informal Educators
Event Date: Jan. 15, 2014, at 6:30 p.m. EST

Meteorology: How Clouds Form
Audience: 6-8 and Informal Educators
Event Date: Jan. 16, 2014, at 6:30 p.m. EST

For more information and to register online, visit the NSTA Learning Center.

NES Professional Development Web Seminars: Week of Jan. 6, 2014

NES Web Seminar — Engineering Design: Forces and Motion — Balloon Aerodynamics Challenge
Audience: 6-8 and Informal Educators
Event Date: Jan. 8, 2014, at 6:30 p.m. EST

NES Web Seminar — Heat Transfer: MESSENGER — My Angle on Cooling 
Audience: 5-8 and Informal Educators
Event Date: Jan. 9, 2014, at 6:30 p.m. EST

For more information and to register online, visit the NSTA Learning Center.

What Happened This Year @ NASA

In 2013, NASA helped transform access to low Earth orbit, even as one of our venerable spacecraft reached the boundaries of the solar system and we moved ahead on technologies that will help us carry out an ambitious asteroid mission we announced and, eventually, move on to Mars.

To watch a quick trip back through 2013 for those and some of the other big things that happened visit This Year at NASA on the NASA YouTube Channel.

Professional Development Opportunity for Educatiors

NES Web Seminar — Newton’s Laws of Motion: Lunar Nautics

NASA Explorer Schools and the National Science Teachers Association are hosting a 90-minute live professional development Web seminar for educators on Dec. 19, 2013, at 6:30 p.m. EST. This seminar features three lessons for grades 6-8 that focus on a real-world understanding of Newton’s Laws of Motion and common misconceptions associated with the laws. The featured lessons are Rocket Staging: Balloon Staging and Lunar Landing: Swinging Tray and Lunar Base Supply Egg Drop.

The featured activities provide opportunities for incorporating national science, technology and mathematics learning standards into curricula as well as address middle school Next Generation Science Standards.

This is the only time during this school year that this seminar will be offered.

For more information and to register online, visit http://learningcenter.nsta.org/products/symposia_seminars/NES4/webseminar24.aspx.

Video Chat Today: Asteroid Retrieval

Paulo Younse
Paulo Younse,
Robotics Engineer at JPL

At 1 p.m. EST, Paulo Younse will answer your students’ questions about how his team put together a proposal for NASA’s asteroid retrieval mission. He will also answer questions about his career at NASA. Younse is a robotics engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. He designs new types of robots for future NASA solar system exploration missions. Recent projects he has worked on include the latest Mars Rover, “Curiosity.” Currently, he is developing techniques for a proposed Mars Sample Return mission that will collect Martian rock samples and bring them back to Earth. He is also part of a team of scientists and engineers who are going to submit a proposal for the Asteroid Retrieval Project. Younse has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a master’s degree in agricultural engineering from the University of Florida.

 
In order to submit questions all you need a computer connected to the Internet. 15 minutes prior to the start of the chat, go to the event page and log into the chat window. Video chat event pages can always be accessed by going to the NES Virtual Campus and clicking on the link in the “Ask an Expert” panel on the left side of the page.

NES Professional Development Opportunity for Middle School Educators

Temperature and Earth Climate: Modeling Hot and Cold Planets, Dec. 5 at 6:30 p.m. EDT.

This Web seminar features the student activity “Modeling Hot and Cold Planets” from NASA’s Earth Climate Course. The featured activity provides many opportunities for incorporating national science, technology, and mathematics learning standards into the curriculum as well as addressing the Next Generation Science Standards.

For more information and to register visit the NSTA Learning Center.

NASA Now: Get Your Classroom Involved With LADEE

NASA Now Classroom Video: Get Your Class Involved With LADEE, available on the NES Virtual Campus website on Dec. 11, 2013. During the program, Brian Day, Director of Communication and Outreach at the Lunar Science Institute, presents an overview of NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE (pronounced like “laddie”), mission. He also discusses the importance of asteroids and why he chases solar eclipses. A link will be provided for students allowing them to contribute to the mission by counting meteors with the assistance of NASA’s Meteor Counter app.

Check out NASA Now Minute: Get Your Class Involved With LADEE at the NES Chanel on YouTube.

NES Professional Development Web Seminar — Pythagorean Theorem: Exploring Space Through Math-Lunar Rover

NES and the NSTA are hosting a 90-minute live professional development Web seminar for grades 8-12 educators on Oct. 30, at 6:30 p.m. EDT. Learn to use the distance formula and the Pythagorean theorem to determine the minimal path and minimal time for a lunar rover to perform tasks on the surface of the moon. Participants should have a basic knowledge of scale factor and application of the Pythagorean theorem. Having access to a calculator is helpful but not necessary for session.

The activity provides many opportunities for incorporating national mathematics learning standards into the curriculum as well as addressing Common Core State Standards, Mathematics.

For more information and to register online, visit the registration page.