
Education Innovation — Google Science Fair

To learn more about how NASA Explorer Schools educator Tracy Espiritu and the teachers at the academy pulled off this successful astronomy night, read the Astronomy Night at School 29 post in the Ideas for family night events post in the ~Other NASA-related Activities I’ve Done forum in NEON.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a stop-action camera that could document the growth of your students’ plants in the NASA Explorer Schools module, Lunar Plant Growth Chamber? What might be other possible classroom uses for such a camera?
NASA-supported researchers have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism, which lives in California’s Mono Lake, substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in the backbone of its DNA and other cellular components.
The results of this study will inform ongoing research in many areas, including the study of Earth’s evolution, organic chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, disease mitigation and Earth system research. These findings also will open up new frontiers in microbiology and other areas of research.
“The idea of alternative biochemistries for life is common in science fiction,” said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the agency’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. “Until now a life form using arsenic as a building block was only theoretical, but now we know such life exists in Mono Lake.”
Excerpt from Science @ NASA
Link to a large image.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
Students and teachers have an opportunity to learn about the wide variety of career choices at NASA — astronauts aren’t the only folks who work at NASA! NASA employees representing various projects and missions will be in the Digital Learning Network studios for a series of webcasts focusing on careers. They will share their academic experiences from elementary school through college and talk about what motivated them to pursue their careers.
Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Link to the IceBridge Mission page.
During this unique episode of NASA Now, astronaut and veteran spacewalker Mike Foreman describes his experiences from liftoff to living and working in space. He was selected to be an astronaut in 1998. He flew on space shuttle Endeavour in March 2008, and he returned to the station on space shuttle Atlantis in November 2009. Foreman has logged over 637 hours in space, with over 32 of those hours in a spacesuit during five spacewalks.