Worldwide Resources Through CORE

When you need supplemental materials for NASA-related lessons and activities, the Central Operation of Resources for Educators may be your answer. CORE serves as the worldwide distribution center for NASA-produced multimedia materials. You may purchase the materials for a minimal charge. Resources available from CORE include activity kits, CD-ROMs and DVDs, posters, and space memorabilia. The kits and memorabilia may be especially useful for student demonstrations in DIY Podcast video productions.

CORE
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NASA Education Video Resource


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DIY Podcast topic modules include downloadable video for students to use when creating their products, but you may be interested in an upcoming webcast that will offer tips for finding additional NASA multimedia to use in the classroom. The NASA Digital Learning Network will offer a free, interactive program at 4 p.m. EST on Nov. 18 geared toward educators looking for NASA video resources. Using NASA eClips™ to Engage Millennial Learners will guide participants through the NASA eClips Web site and demonstrate how to use the Teacher Toolbox. The site features short educational video segments designed to inspire students and help them see real-world connections.

Digital Learning Network: Webcast Announcement

NASA eClips

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NASA Educational TV

When students are searching for more information to build their products with the DIY Podcast activity, NASA TV is a good place to look. You can watch live events, including live space station video and mission coverage.

 

NASA Television is a multichannel, digital service that includes the NASA TV Education Channel, which provides grade-level programming for teachers and students. You may refer to the NASA Television Education File for the monthly programming schedule. Much of the educational programming is theme-related. Monthly themes are listed at the top of the Web page, and a link to the previous month’s theme is listed at the bottom of the page.

 

The education file also provides links to information on sources for viewing NASA TV, how to get digital NASA TV and a list of program descriptions. As you click through the educational programming descriptions, you’ll find links to CORE, the Central Operation of Resources for Educators, where you can order many of the videos. You’ll also find links to NASA eClips™ that are available for online viewing.

 

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New Treadmill Information for Fitness Module

The DIY Podcast topic module about fitness explains that space station crew members use treadmill exercises to maintain bone mass, cardiovascular fitness and muscle endurance. The device that’s mentioned and demonstrated is the Treadmill Vibration Isolation System, or TVIS. Now, a new treadmill to go along with TVIS has been added to the station, and you may want to include it in your classroom’s podcast about fitness.

COLBERT, the world’s most famous treadmill, was transferred to the station in September during the STS-128 shuttle mission. The Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, or COLBERT, is named after Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert of “The Colbert Report.” NASA chose the acronym COLBERT after the television comedian received the most votes in an online NASA poll to name a space station node. NASA opted to name the node Tranquility, but named the treadmill after Colbert.

COLBERT (the treadmill, not the comedian) has a maximum speed of 12.4 mph, which is faster than the Olympic 100 meter race record. Crew members usually run about 4 to 8 mph. The COLBERT design allows ground experts tracking crew health in orbit to create individual exercise prescriptions and uplink them to the crew as a profile.

The following links to images, video and background information will be helpful if your students want to include COLBERT in their fitness production.


Official COLBERT PATCH



COLBERT decal on the treadmill


Stephen Colbert’s inspirational message video

Do Tread on Me 
COLBERT Ready for Serious Exercise 

Announcement on “Colbert Report,” Treadmill Named COLBERT


DIY Podcast: Fitness
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Science Demonstrations for a Spacesuits Podcast

If you plan to use the DIY Podcast Spacesuits topic module for your students to create their own video podcast, you might consider requiring them to do a science demonstration to enhance their understanding of science concepts and improve the overall quality of their podcast. One of the best ways to understand a concept is to do it, and NASA Education has resources to guide students in creating their own demonstrations. The Spacesuits and Spacewalks Education Activities page lists links to lesson plans.

Here are a few highlights:

  • Some of the lessons from the Suited for Spacewalking Educator Guide now have demonstration videos. The videos give brief explanations of lesson concepts and the materials and setups needed for demonstrations.
  • In the Keeping Your Cool demonstration, students learn how the liquid cooling and ventilation garment works.
  • Micrometeoroids and Space Debris helps students explain the need for spacesuits to provide protection from tiny, high-speed particles in space. Students can also learn about the various layers of the spacesuit.
  • The Bending Under Pressure demonstration allows students to use inflated balloons and rubber bands to discuss how NASA engineers must construct a spacesuit so that astronauts can work in it when it is pressurized.
  • Students demonstrate how surface color affects heat absorption in the Absorption and Radiation demonstration.

As students rehearse and record their demonstrations for a podcast, they gain a deeper, more practical understanding of these science concepts.

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DIY Podcast: Spacesuits

NASA Career Resources

As your students engage with NASA content in the DIY Podcast activity, we hope they’ll become intrigued with NASA’s mission and want to be a part of it. NASA offers fulfilling careers for engineers, mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, chemists, pilots, surgeons, attorneys, accountants and experts in many other exciting fields that may interest your students. NASA Education has launched a new Web page to help students learn about jobs at NASA. It provides career information, such as opportunities for students to intern at NASA, descriptions of jobs at NASA and career resources sorted by grade levels.

 

NASA Careers

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Rocket Resources for Teachers

NASA knows rockets. And NASA has educator guides that include lesson plans about rockets. These educator guides may come in handy if your class creates their own podcasts using the DIY Podcast Rocket Evolution topic module.

The Rockets Educator Guide contains new and updated lessons and activities from the original Rockets Educator Guide published in 2003. The Adventures in Rocket Science Educator Guide is especially for informal education venues, with 25 activities for educators and students.

The Engineering Design Challenges: Spacecraft Structures Educator Guide challenges students to think about how a rocket should be strong, yet lightweight. Students build and test a launch structure with these qualities. The Engineering Design Challenges: Thermal Protection Systems Educator Guide calls for students to design, build and test a thermal protection system model that can withstand the heat of a propane torch.

The Lunar Nautics: Designing a Mission to Live and Work on the Moon Educator Guide has 44 activities that engage students in many aspects of planning a mission on the moon — from initial concepts to building rockets and a model of the lunar lander that will explore the moon.

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DIY Podcast: Rocket Evolution

Deciding Between Audio and Video Podcasts

As you start a new school year, our NASA education team hopes you’re planning to include the DIY Podcast as a classroom project. It’s a ready-made resource for engaging your students in STEM topics. You may be trying to decide between audio and video as you set the stage for your students to create their own podcasts featuring NASA astronauts and technical experts.

A good starting point is to pinpoint what you’re trying to achieve. Is your focus on sharing knowledge and information, or do you want to demonstrate a concept or activity? Demonstrations are usually enhanced by visual productions. Straight information and content-rich interviews and sound bites are well-suited for audio productions.

Try to anticipate how people are likely to use your product. If you think they’ll take time to watch it on their computer or mobile device, video may be the right choice. If it’s more likely they would want to listen to your students’ podcast while doing other things, audio may be better. Audio works well for multitaskers who might not stop what they’re doing just to watch a video. Generally speaking, video is a foreground medium and audio is a background medium.

An important consideration is the time and equipment required to produce your podcast. Audio usually takes much less time to produce than video, and the equipment costs less. Audio files are smaller than video files, which may be a key factor if bandwidth is a concern for you.

The popularity of online video continues to soar. Educators recognize the power of visual communication. Research suggests that more than 80 percent of human learning occurs visually. Combining audio and visual elements leaves a strong, long-lasting impression.

Since the whole point is to engage your students, you may want to ask them which medium they would prefer to create. And remember to create a podcasting rubric before you begin the assignment.

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Finding Apollo and Space Shuttle Photos


The DIY Podcast Rocket Evolution module includes links to some of NASA’s Apollo and space shuttle images. But, as you might expect, NASA has many photos of the Apollo/Saturn V and the space shuttle. These images are available online in several places.

The JSC Digital Image Collection from Johnson Space Center in Houston offers most of the Apollo images, early shuttle images and images from other human spaceflight missions. Browse the collection to find images from a specific mission. NASA Images features a timeline at the bottom of the main page that could be helpful as students collect information and multimedia content for their podcasts. Rolling over the timeline causes different NASA missions to pop up. Students may select the mission they want and then narrow their search by selecting from a list of What, Where, Who and When. Students also may use the search box to find images of specific parts of Apollo or the shuttle, such as the J-2 engine or solid rocket boosters.

Each shuttle mission has its own image gallery. The Space Shuttle Gallery has photos from preflight to postflight and lets you select images associated with a specific mission. Some of the best pictures of the spacecraft are captured during launch and landing, and are available in Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Archives.

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DIY Podcast: Rocket Evolution

Scriptwriting Idea for Solar Arrays Production


In the DIY Podcast Solar Arrays topic module, Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur details some of the uses of electricity on the International Space Station. Electricity is a lifeline for astronauts on the space station. They can’t even breathe without it. While electricity is very important on Earth, it’s not generally considered a necessity for survival.

It might be fun for your students to compare or contrast uses of electricity on Earth to those in space. When you create your student podcast, insert a NASA video clip of McArthur listing one of the ways electricity is used in space and follow it with a student listing a similar or different way they use electricity on Earth. Repeat this several times to create a montage of students and functions of electricity in their everyday lives. Video clips 9-v through 14-v or audio clips 8-a through 12-a are well-suited for this approach to your script. You can download the files from the Audio Clips and Video Clips pages of the Solar Arrays module.

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DIY Podcast: Solar Arrays