Sharing NASA
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The Internet is more than a library, a TV, or a pathway to passive information. One of its most exciting uses is as a tool for collaboration. It allows teachers and students to work together to design inquiries and explore challenges.
The "Sharing NASA" initiative offers online opportunities to meet scientists, writers, engineers and other professionals. For students, this helps to break down the artificial barriers between the school, the wider community and the world of work. For teachers, it opens new paths to both professional development and school reform and restructuring.
Interactions between students and working professionals can be tricky to establish and maintain, however, and it may not be clear how to integrate them into an existing curriculum. That's why NASA's Quest Team has always made it a top priority to develop such programs and offer them "out of the box and ready to go" to classrooms around the world.
Current Sharing NASA projects include:
Space Scientists Online explores a rich variety of topics with exciting spacecraft like Mars Pathfinder and the Hubble Space Telescope. One hot topic is astrobiology-the study of life in the universe. Where do we come from? Are we alone? What is our future on Earth and in space? Space Scientists Online includes archives from almost a dozen previous projects. This project provides live events on the Internet (both chats and audio/video programs) on diverse topics within NASA's Office of Space Science.
Space Team Online. Join the men and women who make the shuttle and space station fly. Learn about their diverse and exciting careers. We'll peek behind the scenes as these folks train astronauts and work with the shuttle, preparing for flight, launching, overseeing (from Mission Control) and landing. Also, the people responsible for the International Space Station will share the adventure of designing and building a new home in space. This project will be available indefinitely.
Aero Design Team Online focuses on NASA's exciting aeronautics mission, including huge wind tunnels, the world's best flight simulators, research aircraft, and supercomputer simulations. During the current school year, we'll follow the testing of a replica of the Wright Brothers' first airplane. This project is available now and there are no current plans to end it.
Women of NASA provides an opportunity to meet some of NASA's high-level women via scheduled live QuestChats and online forums. Also available is an archive of biographies of NASA's diverse scientific and technical women, and online and offline resources for teachers who are trying to deal with the issue of gender equity in their teaching. This project is designed to encourage female involvement in math, science, and technology careers via role models within NASA.
Each of these Sharing NASA projects allows students to share in the excitement of NASA's authentic scientific and engineering pursuits-like flying the shuttle, spacecraft exploration of distant planets, and space-based life sciences research. The focus of these projects is the enthusiastic people of NASA, and Sharing NASA hopes students will finish the project feeling like they've met these interesting folks through chats, e-mail Q&A, and live audio/video programs.
Sharing NASA projects include a full suite of online resources:
- Biographies of NASA experts and stories about their work days
- Several chats per month
- E-mail service in which individual questions get answered
- Audio/video programs over the Internet
- Lesson plans and student activities
- Collaborative activities in which kids work with one another
- Areas for students to publish on NASA's Web
- Background and photo sections
- Places where teachers can meet one another
All Sharing NASA projects are open to any teacher or student without cost. To get involved, visit the Web site and jump in. For each project you are interested in, it is strongly recommended that you join the project's mail list.
Curator: Randolph Kim
Responsible NASA Official: Mark
Leon
Last Updated: 07/02/2002
