Educator/Student Resources – Do-It-Yourself Podcast Blog

Additional NASA Audio Clips

All of NASA Education’s DIY Podcast topic modules include audio clips your students can download for their podcasts. You also may want to include related audio clips available on the NASA Audio File page. The page has sound clips with NASA scientists, researchers, astronauts and officials, as well as natural sound of events such as spacecraft launch and landing.

If your class creates podcasts using the new DIY Podcast Robots topic module, you might consider a couple of Viking spacecraft sound clips from the NASA Audio File page. They would work nicely with a DIY Podcast clip of robotic systems engineer Fernando Zumbado talking about NASA’s planetary mission robots. In clip No. 9 on the Audio Clips and Video Clips

pages of the Robots module, Zumbado mentions the Viking spacecraft and the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers. Browse the NASA Audio File archives to find and download related clips that complement the Zumbado clips your students use in their podcasts.

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DIY Podcast: Robots

NASA Audio File

NASA Audio File: Viking to Mars — 30th Anniversary

NASA Education Robotics Resource

The topic of our newest DIY Podcast module is Robots. You’ll find a lot of information, links, images and downloadable audio and video clips in the module. But there’s another resource that may help your students when they’re researching robots and developing their podcast scripts. The NASA Education Robotics Web site is a central location for robotics-related educational products and opportunities, videos and interactive modules.

The site includes information about the STS-131 space shuttle mission scheduled to launch in April 2010. Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, an educator and mission specialist, is a robotic arm operator on STS-131. The robotics site features video messages for students and teachers from Metcalf-Lindenburger. The site also includes an image gallery students can use to enhance their podcasts about robots.

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DIY Podcast: Robots

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station

Most of the DIY Podcast topic modules feature astronauts on the International Space Station explaining or demonstrating scientific concepts. Your students can create audio podcasts with the sound clips we provide on the Audio Clips page of each topic module. But what if your students could interview an astronaut aboard the space station and ask the specific questions they want answered? Amateur Radio on the International Space Station, or ARISS, offers this opportunity.

If you or one of your students’ parents is a ham radio operator, you may be able to contact an astronaut aboard the station. Record the conversation audio, and then your students will have unique content to add to their podcasts. As students prepare for a 10-minute session with a space explorer, they could study a topic related to a DIY Podcast module, listen to the clips provided in the module, and then ask informed questions to get answers they would like to include as sound bites in their own podcasts.

ARISS
International Space Station Reference: Ham Radio
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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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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

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