NASA Education “Science WOW!” Message — April 12, 2017

**NEW** STEM @ NASA Goddard Webcast Event: Earth Day 2017
Audience: All Educators and Students
Event Date: April 19, 2017, Noon-12:30 p.m. EDT

Join NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center on Wednesday, April 19, at Noon EDT for the “STEM@NASA Goddard: Earth Day 2017” event. Every day is Earth Day at NASA, and in this 30-minute program viewers will learn how and why NASA studies Earth from space. In addition, participants will learn how they can become citizen scientists through the GLOBE Program.

The 30-minute event will be streamed live on UStream, and participants will be able to interact with the guest speaker by submitting questions through email and Twitter.

To view the programs on Ustream, visit http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-gsfc.

For more information or to express interest in participating, please contact Erin McKinley at erin.e.mckinley@nasa.gov.

Student Spaceflight Experiments Program — Mission 12 to the International Space Station
Audience: School Districts Serving Grades 5-12, Informal Education Institutions, Colleges and Universities
Inquiry Deadline: April 28, 2017
Start Date: September 5, 2017

The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education announce a science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, opportunity for school districts across the U.S. and space station partner nations. The newest flight opportunity, Mission 12 to the International Space Station, gives students across a community the ability to design and propose real experiments to fly in low Earth orbit on the space station. This opportunity is part of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program, or SSEP.

Each participating community will receive a microgravity research mini-laboratory capable of supporting a single microgravity experiment and all launch services to fly the minilab to the space station in spring/summer 2018 and return it to Earth. An experiment design competition in each community — engaging typically 300+ students — allows student teams to design and propose real experiments vying for their community′s reserved mini-lab.

Content resources for teachers and students support foundational instruction on science in microgravity and experimental design. Additional SSEP programming uses the experiment design competition to engage the community in embracing a learning-community model for STEM education.

This competition is open to students in grades 5-12 and college. Informal education groups and organizations also are encouraged to participate. Interested communities must inquire about the program no later than April 28, 2017. The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education is available to help interested communities in the U.S. secure the needed funding.

To learn more about this opportunity, visit the “SSEP Mission 12 to International Space Station” National Announcement of Opportunity at http://ssep.ncesse.org/2017/03/new-flight-opportunity-for-school-districts-announcing-student-spaceflight-experiments-program-ssep-mission-12-to-the-international-space-station-starting-september-2017/.

SSEP is enabled through a strategic partnership with DreamUp PBC and NanoRacks LLC working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the use of the International Space Station as a national laboratory. The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (http://www.iss-casis.org/) is a national partner of SSEP. To view a list of all SSEP national partners, visit http://ssep.ncesse.org/national-partners/.

If you have any questions about this opportunity, please email SSEP National Program Director Jeff Goldstein at jeffgoldstein@ncesse.org.

Science Opportunities for Educators of Grades K-12

NASA Solar Eclipse Workshops at Marshall Space Flight Center
Audience: K-12 Educators
Next Workshop Date: April 13, 2017, 4-6 p.m. CDT

On Aug. 21, 2017, the United States will experience a solar eclipse. This celestial event will provide a golden opportunity to engage and educate diverse audiences, and NASA has the resources to help. Join the Educator Resource Center at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for a series of grade-level specific educator workshops to learn about safety tips, hands-on activities, resources and more!

April 13, 2017, 4-6 p.m. CDT: Educators of Grades 3-5
April 18, 2017, 4-6 p.m. CDT: Educators of Grades 6-8
May 6, 2017, 9-11 a.m. CDT: Educators of Grades K-12
June 1, 2017, 9-11 a.m. CDT: Educators of Grades K-12

For full event details and registration information, visit https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/solar_eclipse_workshop2017.pdf.

Please direct questions about this workshop to Maria Chambers at maria.a.chambers@nasa.gov.

Free Education Webinars From NASA Educator Professional Development
Audience: In-service, Pre-service, Home School and Informal Educators

The NASA STEM Educator Professional Development Collaborative at Texas State University is presenting a series of free webinars open to all educators. Join NASA education specialists to learn about activities, lesson plans, educator guides and resources that bring NASA into your classroom. Registration is required to participate. To register, simply click on the link provided beneath the webinar description.

**NEW** Solar System Exploration: Exploring New Worlds
Audience: Pre-service, In-service, Home School and Informal Educators of Grades 6-12
Event Date: April 13, 2017, at 6 p.m. EDT
Is there another Earth beyond our solar system? Is anybody else out there? This webinar will try to answer these questions using real NASA data to explore how space-based telescopes, especially the Kepler Space Telescope, search for planets orbiting stars beyond our sun. The NASA STEM activities presented will investigate how to use Kepler Space Telescope data and Kepler’s Third Law to construct graphs and interpret data that determines if a planet beyond our solar system is Earth-like and a candidate to support “life.” Register online to participate. https://www.etouches.com/232492

**NEW** Solar System Exploration: Cassini — Reading, Writing and Rings
Audience: Pre-service, In-service, Home School and Informal Educators of Grades K-4
Event Date: April 18, 2017, at 7:30 p.m. EDT
Explore the mysteries of Saturn and Cassini with a blend of science and language arts. The webinar will present an activity for students to learn about Saturn just as the first observers of Saturn did — by observing and wondering. Students look at pictures of Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft, and the Huygens probe, and write what they know, notice and wonder. This activity invites students to observe carefully and learn from each other, while giving educators an idea of students may have already known about this topic. Register online to participate. https://www.etouches.com/223585

For a full schedule of upcoming NASA Educator Professional Development webinars, visit http://www.txstate-epdc.net/events/.

Questions about this series of webinars should be directed to Steve Culivan at stephen.p.culivan@nasa.gov.

Earn STEM Digital Badges to Celebrate the Centennial of NASA’s Langley Research Center
Audience: Educators and Students in Grades 5-9, Informal Educators
Deadline: April 30, 2017

To celebrate NASA’s Langley Research Center’s Centennial, three STEM digital badges are now available for educators and students in grades 5-9. Discover the role of cloud types in the Earth’s Energy Budget; how drag is used to land the Mars2020 Rover on Mars; and the importance of composite materials for airplanes.

Educators may earn up to 15 hours of professional development. Student badges include up to six hours of content aligned to the educator badge.

The first 1,000 educators to complete all three badges by April 30, 2017, will receive a NASA insignia iron-on patch.

For more information and to begin earning badges, visit https://nasatxstate-epdc.net/. After logging in to the site, click on the Explore icon and type “NASA Langley” in the search area to find and select the NASA Langley Centennial Mission.

Please direct questions about this opportunity to Marilé Colón Robles at marile.colonrobles@nasa.gov.

Opportunities for Higher Education and Informal Institutions

Help NASA Find New Planetary Systems — Become a Disk Detective!
Audience: All Educators and Students
Project Timeframe: Now Through 2018

Help NASA find new disks, homes of extrasolar planets, by classifying images from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer telescope and other observatories. In this citizen science project, you’ll view animated images of disk candidates and classify them, distinguishing good candidates from galaxies, asteroids and image artifacts. This project, suitable for elementary students through expert adults, will yield targets for the James Webb Space Telescope and publications in professional scientific literature.

This project is ongoing and expected to run through 2018. For more information and to start hunting for planets, visit http://www.diskdetective.org/.

Questions about this opportunity should be directed to Marc Kuchner at marc.j.kuchner@nasa.gov.