Join NES for a live video chat on Feb. 8, 2012 from 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. EST to celebrate National Black History Month with a panel of five NASA engineers and scientists. The chat room opens at 1:15 EST.
Exploring Newton's Laws of Motion
Students of NASA Explorer Schools educator Dennis Hagen-Smith from Toluca Lake Elementary School completed the Balloon Rocket Experiment from the lesson Newton’s Laws of Motion: Lunar Nautics. This activity is a simple demonstration of rocket staging first proposed by Johann Schmidlap in the 16th century. Hagen-Smith’s students learned how rockets achieve greater distances through staging. They also found out that it takes an enormous amount of energy to boost an object into space.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
NASA Launches Destination Innovation Video Series
NASA has launched a new video series called Destination Innovation that will air on NASA Television. The series is featured on the agency’s website, YouTube, Facebook and NASA’s apps for iPhone®, iPad® and Android™.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
NASA Now: Earth and Space Science: Asteroids
There are thousands of comets and asteroids in our solar system. When these objects enter Earth’s neighborhood, scientists classify them as Near Earth Objects. Senior Research Scientist Don Yeomans tells us where they are, how big they are and if they pose a threat to our planet.
This program is available on the Virtual Campus beginning Feb 8, 2012.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
Video Chat: Sea Level Rise and Global Climate Change
Give your students the opportunity to ask questions of a NASA oceanographer and climate scientist. Dr. Josh Willis is an oceanographer and climate scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. He was the Deputy Project Scientist and a member of the science team on Jason 1 and 2. Willis is currently the Lead Project Scientist for the Jason 3 project.
To join the chat, go to the chat page up to 15 minutes prior to noon EST, where you will find instructions for logging into the chat room to ask questions.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
Student Spaceflight Experiments Program Inspires with Mission 1
Middle school students are doing research on the International Space Station? You better believe it!
“Insulin’s Molecular Structure in Microgravity” and “Hepatocyte Development in Bioscaffolds Infused with TGFB3 in Microgravity” are both titles of experiments developed by students from Johnston Middle School, in Houston, Texas.
For proof of the inspirational impact of the International Space Station, you need only speak to the educators of the students participating in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program, or SSEP. The program offered 41,200 students from around the nation the chance to propose and design a microgravity experiment with the chance of having their experiment flown aboard the space station.
You may read more about this story at www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/SSEP.html.
See how you can inspire your students by getting them involved in a simulated International Space Station experience. Log in to the NASA Explorer Schools Virtual Campus website and check out the featured lesson Engineering Design Challenge: Lunar Plant Growth Chamber and the NASA Now program Exercise Physiology: Countermeasures.
NASA Now: Electromagnetic Spectrum — NuSTAR
Astrophysicist Ann Hornschemeier explains how NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, uses high-energy X-rays to search for and take pictures of the densest, hottest and most energetic regions in the universe!
Preview this program
NASA Releases Sector 33 Air Traffic Control Educational App
NASA has released a new educational game with an air traffic control theme for Apple iPhone and iPad devices. Sector 33 is designed to challenge students in middle school and above to use basic math and problem-solving skills.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
NASA Releases First Multi-player Facebook Game
NASA has launched its first multi-player online game totest players’ knowledge of the space program. Who was the firstAmerican to walk in space? Who launched the first liquid-fueledrocket? These are only a few of the questions players can answer inSpace Race Blastoff.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
Message from the Administrator: Day of Remembrance – Jan. 26, 2012
Day of Remembrance – Jan. 26, 2012 This last week of January, as we do every year, the NASA family honors those who have lost their lives carrying out our missions and pays tribute to their lives and memories. In the face of our greatest accomplishments, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that each time men and women board a spacecraft, their actions carry great risk along with the opportunity for great discoveries and the chance to push the envelope of our human achievement. So on this Day of Remembrance, we honor the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia crews, as well as other members of the NASA family who died supporting NASA’s mission of exploration. We thank them and their families for their extraordinary sacrifices in the service of our nation. As a family, we truly pull together, and our recovery from each of these tragedies has been heartbreaking and inspiring. I thank all of you for the inspiration you provide to each other and me as we open the next great chapter of exploration. Today, I lay wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery for these fallen heroes, and many of you, as in past years, join me in reflection on their lives and the greater purpose we all serve to reach new heights through our actions. Across the country, all flags at NASA Headquarters and the NASA centers will be flown at half-mast in memory of our colleagues lost in the cause of exploration. In memory of our colleagues, I ask all of you in the NASA family once again to always make your opinions known and be unafraid to speak up to those in authority, so that SAFETY CAN ALWAYS BE OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLE, and the sacrifices of our friends and colleagues will not be in vain. We cherish the memories of our lost colleagues and friends and work hard every day to preserve and build on their legacies. Their lives and work are inspiring each of us every day to carry out the missions of tomorrow and increase our capabilities to do more, learn more, and discover more. There is no greater tribute we can pay! Please join me in working to fulfill the dreams of these men and women for the future. May God’s richest blessings be on the memory of our fallen comrades and on all of us on this solemn day of remembrance! Charlie B. |
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