When students return to school, NASA provides resources for students, teachers, and families.
From kindergarten kids to college students and beyond, NASA has resources and opportunities geared towards Inform and inspire studentsand involve them in the many upcoming space agency initiatives.
“We hope to bring students to NASA’s exciting journey,” said Kris Brown, associate assistant administrator for NASA’s STEM Engagement Bureau, to Space.com. (STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.) “In particular, we have a number of really exciting mission milestones coming up this fall.”
Related: Open space projects for children (and adults) stuck at home during the coronavirus outbreak
One of these milestones is the introduction of the James Webb Space Telescope, a highly anticipated observatory that will build on the successes of NASA’s iconic Hubble Space Telescope. Some of the resources and lesson plans that will enable students to learn about the telescope include the James Webb Space Telescope STEM Toolkit and the James Webb Fun pad, an activity book for young students in grades K-4. The telescope is scheduled to start in December.
NASAs Artemis Program that aims to get the first woman and person of color to the moon within this decade is slated to begin with Artemis 1, an unmanned mission around the moon, in late November or December. Artemis missions will use new technology to explore the lunar surface and prepare NASA to eventually take the first humans to Mars. Educational resources include the STEM Forward to the moon Activity guide.
Students can also attend NASAs Artemis Student Challenges. Open to intermediate through graduate students, the competitions challenge students to design and produce scientific and engineering experiments and technology, many of which are related to the Artemis missions. the Student start For example, challenge teams of US college students and select middle and high school students to design, build, and fly high-performance rockets that carry scientific or engineering experiments. The deadline for submitting a proposal for the Student Launch Challenge is September 20th.
NASAs persistence Rover and Ingenuity Helicopter landed on Mars in February 2021, and both missions are ongoing. Educators can do that Mission to Mars Students Challenge and materials like the im Mars 2020 STEM toolkit to educate students about the missions and design process that scientists go through to prepare for landing on Mars. (Mars 2020 is the official name of the Perseverance mission.)
Related: Where can I find the latest Mars photos from NASA’s Perseverance rover?
NASA also has challenges related to observing and studying Earth and near-Earth space, including the TechRise challenge, in which teams of students compete against each other to design and build experiments for suborbital launch, either on a rocket or an altitude balloon. A new satellite named Landsat 9, the latest in the Landsat series of satellites that observe Earth from orbit. NASA invites students to share image-inspired art in their Landsat image gallery on social media using the hashtag #.LandsatCraft.
NASA student Internship and scholarship Programs have various positions open to high school through graduate students. Although NASA has not been able to host interns in person due to the coronavirus pandemic, it welcomed over 1,000 interns from afar this summer and will have 618 new interns at its centers this fall. While the summer and fall remote internships differ from normal NASA in-person programs, they do offer some benefits, said Katherine Brown, NASA’s public affairs officer for education. For example, students who are normally unable to leave their homes or who travel long distances to be near a NASA center can attend. NASA will start to accept Applications for his internships in spring and summer 2022 on October 1st.
NASAs STEM @ Home Initiative also gives students and families access to information on STEM topics and NASA’s work. The three material sets for elementary, center, and secondary school Students provide articles, activities, videos, and guides for science experiments at home. MINT resources are also available for both formally Lessons in the classroom and informal Education in places like science centers, museums, and libraries that NASA through their Alliance for Museum and Informal Education.
This school year is sure to be a challenge for the students. Some may return to a personal classroom after over a year of virtual teaching, while others may move on to distance learning. Kris Brown said she hopes NASA resources can provide fun ways for students to learn what teachers have planned for this difficult year and “give them a chance to immerse themselves in something really exciting”.
“We all need a little boost now,” she said.
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