Month: March 2009

DIY Podcast Adds Sports Demonstration Topic Module


We added a new topic module to the DIY Podcast activity today. It’s called “Sports Demo,” and encourages students to create their own podcast demonstrating the science of sports in space. This latest topic module includes video and audio clips of NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson discussing scientific laws and how they apply to sports in space. He uses basketball, football, baseball, soccer and gymnastics to demonstrate Newton’s laws, the conservation of angular momentum and the effects of microgravity. Anderson demonstrates how much easier it is to dunk a basketball or do gymnastics in microgravity.

Students may choose from 16 video clips to create a video podcast that blends their own original content and NASA astronaut footage. Students also have the option of creating an audio podcast that mixes their own narration with any of 11 audio clips of Anderson explaining the science of sports in space. This DIY Podcast topic module, which also includes images, helpful information and sports and microgravity links, gives students a fun way to compare sports on Earth and in space and get a better understanding of scientific laws and principles.

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DIY Podcast: Sports Demo

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Game-changing Ideas for a Sports Demo Podcast


In the DIY Podcast Sports Demo topic module, astronaut Clayton Anderson samples several sports and demonstrates how different it would be to play them in the microgravity of the space station. Imagine expanding sports beyond the space station to an Earth-orbiting stadium where athletes could play the summer Olympic games or to the moon where gravity is one-sixth of Earth’s gravity. Game rules would change and new sports would be invented.

These are just a few thoughts and ideas you might encourage students to use as a springboard to develop their script for a podcast episode on the science of sports in space. Students could generate new versions of games they like to play or create new games as they consider multiple factors that affect playing sports in space. Students could record their game demonstrations and mix their video with Anderson’s sports demonstration video clips. Be sure to include narration or on-camera interviews with students or subject matter experts explaining the game rules and the science that would require them to be different in space.

In the Comments section below, share your students’ ideas for new or modified games. It might be fun to experiment with the new sports and games that other classrooms develop.

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DIY Podcast: Sports Demo Video Clips

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Resource for Spacesuits Production

One of the DIY Podcast topic modules is Spacesuits. Along with NASA video, audio and images, the topic module includes an overview of spacesuits. Educators who want their students to dig a little deeper and research some of the details about spacesuits may be interested in the NASA Education Spacesuits and Spacewalks Web site.

The site features an interactive spacesuit experience. Students can mouse over parts of a clickable spacesuit and find out why each piece is important. The site has information about a couple of science teachers turned spacewalkers, a collection of activities to help students learn about and design spacesuits, career profiles of spacesuit designers, technicians and engineers who teach astronauts how to work in a spacesuit, and video and images of past and future spacesuits.

The materials on the Spacesuits and Spacewalks site could enhance your students’ script and the overall production they create using the DIY Podcast Spacesuits topic module.


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Please Note: If you leave a comment, please do not include a link to your blog or other Web sites.  We typically won’t be able to approve your comment if you add a URL.