New Teacher Resource to Supplement Rocket Evolution


NASA’s newest educator guide about rockets and rocketry is Ares: Launch and Propulsion. It’s a great resource to supplement lesson planning if your class uses the DIY Podcast Rocket Evolution module to create multimedia projects. This guide focuses on NASA’s Ares launch vehicles and includes the science and history of rockets. The activities call for students to work in teams to investigate one variable at a time in detail by performing tests. By completing these tests, students will learn various aspects involved in launching a rocket. In the assessment, students compete and apply what they have learned about rockets to build a launch vehicle that flies as high as possible.

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DIY Podcast: Rocket Evolution

NASA Educator Resource Centers Offer Freebies for Teachers

Summer is a great time to go “shopping” at a NASA Educator Resource Center. NASA has 69 ERCs across the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to provide free NASA curriculum support products for teachers. Many of the ERCs have NASA educator guides, posters and lithographs that will enhance your teaching of subjects related to the DIY Podcast modules. Take time this summer to prepare for an exciting new school year by picking up NASA educational products and becoming acquainted with your ERC. Some ERCs offer professional development opportunities.

Visit the NASA Educator Resource Center Network Web site to find the location of an ERC that serves your area. Your nearest ERC may be in a different state.

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Resources That Shed Light on Solar Arrays and Electricity


The main page of the Solar Arrays module lists resources for students to use if they want to gather more information for their podcast script. Here are a few more NASA educational resources that you may find helpful in teaching about solar arrays and electricity.


NASA’s Student Observation Network includes the Living and Working in Space: Energy module, which promotes inquiry as students answer questions such as “What variables might affect the operation of solar panels?”

Classroom of the Future offers ISS: Electricity and Power in Space, an electricity module with simulations.

The NASA SCI Files’ The Case of the Electrical Mystery educator guide contains activities that will get students “charged up” about electricity.

NASA’s Environmental Control and Life Support Systems Water Filtration Challenge Educator Guide is an engineering design challenge in which students build and test water filtration systems.

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DIY Podcast: Solar Arrays

Education Standards Supported by Rocket Evolution Module


As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, we’re also looking forward to the flight of our next spacecraft that will replace the shuttle after it retires in 2010. The Constellation Program is in the works to replace the Space Shuttle Program. NASA Education’s new DIY Podcast module, Rocket Evolution, looks at past, present and future NASA rockets. Students can use Apollo and space shuttle video and audio clips along with animation of future spacecraft to show how rockets include technology built on what’s already been learned.


Student podcasts created with this module will support National Science Education Standards, including:
•    Abilities of technological design
•    Understanding about science and technology
•    Science technology and society

Student podcasts built using the Rocket Evolution module will also support the International Technology Education Association educational standard: Students will develop an understanding of the relationships among technologies and the connections between technology and other fields of study.

In addition to audio and video clips, the Rocket Evolution module features information to help students write a podcast script, along with links to related resources and images.

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DIY Podcast: Rocket Evolution

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Apollo 40th Anniversary Audio and Video Available in DIY Podcast Module


This year marks the 40th anniversary of humans’ first steps on the moon. NASA’s theme for the 2009 observance is “Celebrate Apollo: Exploring the Moon, Discovering Earth.” This is an opportune time for you and your students to examine one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century. And NASA Education’s new DIY Podcast module, Rocket Evolution, puts historic multimedia content at your fingertips. The module provides a collection of Apollo audio and video clips that students can download to create their own podcast. Rocket Evolution considers the influence of the Apollo era on present and future rockets. One example is the Constellation Program’s plans to use a derivative of the Apollo J-2 engine as America prepares to go back to the moon and on to Mars.

You’ll find a lot of helpful information and multimedia content about the Apollo Program through the DIY Podcast, but that’s just the beginning. A NASA Web section dedicated to the Apollo 40th Anniversary is loaded with multimedia galleries, a First Footprints toolkit and historical information that will enhance your students’ podcasts.

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DIY Podcast: Rocket Evolution

New DIY Podcast Topic Module: Rocket Evolution


Our newest DIY Podcast topic module has considerably more multimedia content than the others. Rocket Evolution covers past, present and future NASA rockets. It gives you a wide variety of content to choose from as your students build their own podcasts. This topic module features 48 video clips and 24 audio clips that students can download to mix with original content. The content runs the gamut from historical footage to beautiful animation, including President Kennedy’s challenge to go to the moon, several launch countdowns, an artist’s concepts of future rockets, and clips with NASA experts talking about rocketry and the Apollo, Space Shuttle and Constellation programs. You’ll find a nice mix of sound bites and B-roll for video podcasts. If you opt for audio podcasts, your students can be creative as they blend their own narration and music with historic audio and expert sound bites. In addition to audio and video clips, the Rocket Evolution module includes links to images and NASA resources, and information to help students write a podcast script about how rockets have evolved.


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DIY Podcast: Rocket Evolution

Solar Arrays Module Offers Versatility for Student Podcasts

DIY Podcast topic modules tend to offer enough variety that no two student projects will be the same. And that certainly seems to be the case with the new Solar Arrays module. The educational information and multimedia content let you choose from multiple topics as the focus of your podcast. Students can build podcasts about solar energy, electricity, spacecraft solar arrays or the International Space Station’s life support system — just to name a few.

Astronaut Bill McArthur explains how the space station gathers power through its solar arrays to run space station systems, life support and experiments. Electricity is vital to life on the station. McArthur discusses how the solar panels capture sunlight and convert it into electricity. And he lists examples of why electricity is a necessity on the station.

The Solar Arrays module includes images of the Environmental Control and Life Support System because it provides most of the functions McArthur mentions in the audio and video clips. The module also gives you easy access to images of electrical wiring on the station and the many computers, experiments and pieces of equipment that require electricity on the station.

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DIY Podcast: Solar Arrays

New DIY Podcast Topic Module: Solar Arrays


Most of us can’t imagine living without electricity. On the International Space Station, life simply could not exist without it. In our newest DIY Podcast module, astronaut Bill McArthur discusses how electricity is generated and used on the space station. The new Solar Arrays module posted this week gives you easy access to a collection of downloadable NASA audio, video and images that students can use to build their own podcasts. The Solar Arrays module includes 23 video clips and 18 audio clips that students can mix with original content as they explore topics such as solar energy, electricity, spacecraft solar arrays and space station life support. In addition to clips featuring McArthur, this module includes B-roll with spectacular views of Earth and the space station captured during the STS-119 flyaround. The main page of the Solar Arrays module provides helpful information along with links to additional resources for students who want to conduct more research before writing their podcast script.

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DIY Podcast: Solar Arrays

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Space Station Interactive Reference Guide


If your students create a product using DIY Podcast video or audio featuring astronauts living and working on the International Space Station, they may want to learn more about the orbiting laboratory. International Space Station: An Interactive Reference Guide is a helpful resource that includes a tour of the station and explains how the station works and how the crew lives. The guide also has an extensive list of printable documents about space station modules, missions and systems.


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NASA TV Programs About Fitness


If you’re looking for more NASA-related information to help students create podcasts using the NASA Education DIY Podcast Fitness module, check out NASA TV for educational programming. During the month of June 2009, NASA TV will show programming related to bone and muscle loss in microgravity and the importance of fitness on Earth, as well as in space. Note that programming may be pre-empted by other events.


NASA CONNECT™: Better Health From Space to Earth will be shown on June 12 and 18 at 8 a.m. EDT and between the hours of 4 and 6 p.m. and 8 and 10 p.m. EDT. In this episode, students will learn about the importance of good nutrition and exercise. They will investigate what we can learn in space about our bodies here on Earth. Students will see how researchers and scientists apply the mathematics concepts of measurement and estimation to study the loss of calcium in bones and the loss of muscle mass while astronauts are living and working in space.

Another NASA CONNECT™ episode, Good Stress: Building Better Muscles and Bones, runs June 17 between 4 and 6 p.m. and 8 and 10 p.m. EDT. It’s also scheduled on June 24 at 8 a.m. EDT and between the hours of 4 and 6 p.m. and 8 and 10 p.m. EDT. Students will learn about the importance of building and maintaining better muscles and bones. They will learn that all stress in life is not bad. In fact, the body needs good stress, such as exercise, to be healthy. Students will see how scientists and researchers collect and analyze physiological data to understand how muscle and bones are constantly changing, especially in a microgravity environment.

Visit the NASA TV Education File Schedule for information about NASA educational programming and how to find NASA TV in your area. NASA TV is also available online at https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html.

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DIY Podcast: Fitness