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.
As part of a series of electronic professional development experiences for educators, the NASA Explorer Schools project and the National Science Teachers Association are hosting a 90-minute live professional development Web seminar for educators on Dec. 19, 2012, at 6:30 p.m. EST. This Web seminar will introduce the Forces and Motion: Balloon Aerodynamics Challenge for students. This activity provides firsthand information about density, neutral buoyancy and drag, which is then used to solve a problem. The activity provides many opportunities for incorporating national mathematics, science and technology learning standards into your curriculum.
This seminar will be repeated on Apr. 17, 2013.
For more information and to register online, visit the NSTA Learning Center.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
NES educator Kaci Pilcher Heins has a great way to get students involved with STEM — high-altitude ballooning! She says, “Usually each state has a ballooning organization and is very willing to get students involved. We are heading to Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott tomorrow (April 12, 2012) to launch our payload of temperature sensor, pressure sensor, camera, and sensitive film to try and capture gamma rays on board a high-altitude balloon. This is also a great opportunity for my sixth-graders to talk with university students as we tour the campus.” Pilcher Heins reports that they are also using amateur radio with the repeater on the balloon.
Here are pictures of Earth taken during the flight on April 12.
Directly related to this activity is the NES featured lesson, Engineering Design: Forces and Motion — Balloon Aerodynamics.
And be sure to take a look at the May 2 NASA Now program, Balloon Research.
Last month, when the sun unleashed the most intense radiation storm since 2003, peppering satellites with charged particles and igniting strong auroras around both poles, a group of high school students in Bishop, Calif., knew just what to do.They launched a rubber chicken.The students inflated a helium balloon and used it to send the fowl, named “Camilla,” to an altitude of 36.6 km, or 120,000 ft, where it was exposed to high-energy solar protons at point blank range.
Camilla flew twice–once on Mar. 3 before the radiation storm and again on Mar. 10 while the storm was in full swing, giving the students a basis for comparison.
Read more about how the chicken got to the “other side” by visiting http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/19apr_camilla/
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
Dr. Norman W. Schaeffler, a NASA aerospace research engineer, describes how wind tunnels work and how aircraft designers use them to understand aerodynamic forces.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
