NASA wants to launch a picture of you on the final space shuttle mission.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
NASA wants to launch a picture of you on the final space shuttle mission.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
NASA has opened registration for the 2012 OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Video Contest. Featuring OPTIMUS PRIME, the leader from the popular TRANSFORMERS brand, the contest highlights spinoffs from NASA technologies that are used on Earth. The goal is to help students understand the benefits of NASA technology to their daily lives.
Each student, or group of students, will submit a three- to five-minute video on a selected NASA spinoff technology listed in NASA’s 2011 “Spinoff” publication. Videos must demonstrate an understanding of the NASA spinoff technology and the associated NASA mission, as well as the commercial application and public benefit associated with the spinoff technology.
Participants must register for the contest by Dec. 15, 2012.
Video entries will be posted on the NASA YouTube channel, and the public will be responsible for the first round of judging. The top five submissions from each of the three grade groups (elementary [3rd-5th], middle [6th-8th] and high school [9th-12th]) will advance for final judging. A NASA panel will select a winning entry from each group. The students submitting the winning entries will be the guests of honor at the OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Contest awards ceremony in May 2013. While there, the winners will receive the OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Contest trophy and have the opportunity to meet NASA VIPs, astronauts and actor Peter Cullen, who voices the character OPTIMUS PRIME.
TRANSFORMERS and OPTIMUS PRIME are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. © 2012 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved.
For more information, visit https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/releases/2012/12-077.html.
Questions about this contest should be directed to Darryl Mitchell at Darryl.R.Mitchell@nasa.gov.
Here’s an exciting opportunity to involve your students in the unique RealWorld-InWorld NASA Engineering Design Challenge to solve real NASA-related problems.
There are two phases to the RealWorld-InWorld challenge.
RealWorld
The challenge begins in the RealWorld where students in grades 8-12 use the engineering design process to solve one of two problems related to the James Webb Space Telescope. Educator and student RealWorld resources will be available on September 1.
Upon completion of RealWorld registration, teachers and others guiding students through the RealWorld design phase may register to use PTC Creo professional engineering software along with free online training valued at more than $900,000.
InWorld
Twenty selected RealWorld teams are mentored by college engineering students, InWorld, in a virtual world setting. Team leader registration and InWorld resources will be available on September 1.
The InWorld phase begins January 31, 2013 following the completion of the RealWorld phase.
For more information about this exciting challenge, visit the RealWorld-InWorld website.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
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.
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.
The NES Virtual Student Symposium provides the opportunity for up to two teams of two students to share the results of an investigation or NASA design challenge with NASA scientists, engineers, technicians and educators. Participation in the Virtual Student Symposium is a prerequisite for getting invited to the all-expenses-paid NES National Student Symposium to be held at a NASA field center on May 2-5, 2012. The investigation or design challenge may be conducted as a classroom activity or done by students on their own, based on their own interests. The investigation or design challenge must relate to a NASA Explorer Schools teaching module or NASA Now episode on the NASA Explorer Schools Virtual Campus.
NASA has opened registration for the 2011 OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Award Contest. Featuring OPTIMUS PRIME, the leader of the popular TRANSFORMERS brand, the contest highlights spinoffs from NASA technologies that are used on Earth. The goal is to help students understand the benefits of NASA technology to their daily lives. Last year’s contest was open to students in grades 3-8 and resulted in 76 video submissions from over 190 students in 31 states.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
DIME is a team competition for high school students in the ninth through 12th grades. WING is a competition for student teams from the fifth through eighth grades. Both are project-oriented activities that last throughout the school year for the selected teams.
DIME and WING are open to student teams from all 50 states, Washington, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Each team must have an adult supervisor, such as a teacher, parent or technical consultant. Teams may be from any type of organization or club, such as a science class, a group of friends, a scout troop or youth group.
Proposals are due by Nov. 1. A panel of NASA scientists and engineers will evaluate and select the top-ranked proposals by Dec. 1. The winning teams will design and build the experiments that will be conducted in the 2.2-Second Drop Tower at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
The 79-foot tower gets its name because when an experiment is “dropped” into it, the package experiences weightlessness, or microgravity, for 2.2 seconds. Researchers from around the world use this tower to study the effects of microgravity on physical phenomena, such as combustion and fluid dynamics, and to develop new technology for future space missions.
The top four DIME teams will receive an expense-paid trip to Glenn in March 2012 to conduct their experiments, review the results with NASA personnel and tour the center’s facilities. All DIME participants visiting NASA must be U.S. citizens.
Four additional DIME teams, and up to 30 WING teams, will be selected to build their experiments and ship them to Glenn for NASA testing. These experiments and the resulting data will be returned to the teams, so they can prepare reports about their findings.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus.
“Because It Flew,” or BIF, is a free educational program that introduces students in grades 4-12 (ages 9-17) to the impact of the Space Shuttle Program on our planet and people. This engaging and informative project commemorates the 30-year history of the shuttle program. BIF consists of two elements: optional educational activities and the NASA Space Shuttle Art Competition. Entries in the competition are due Aug. 5, 2011. BIF is a joint education initiative of NASA, the National Institute of Aerospace and USA Today Education.
For more information, visit www.usatodayeducate.com/becauseitflew.
If you have any questions about this contest, please e-mail Jan Brown.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.