NASA Explorer Schools

Usually when we think of NASA, we think of spaceships exploring new frontiers. And so it is, of course, but the nation’s space agency also has its hand in more down-to-earth activities, activities that may well have a direct influence on the children in your life.

In the NASA Explorer School (NAS) project, created in 2003, the agency partners with underserved schools across the country to provide a math, science, and technology curriculum to students K-12. When a partnership agreement is reached, teachers and a school administrator come together to develop and implement a three-year action plan that addresses local challenges on the issues listed above. Based on the information generated through the needs assessments, this customized plan is delivered through a combination of school-site services and distance learning networks.

Elements of the program include professional development workshops during the summer months where teams of educators meet at the nine NASA Field Centers and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The intensive one-week training provides opportunities for teachers to begin integrating NASA content into existing school curricula and extends to creating and implementing action plans to address local challenges.

Throughout the school year, ongoing research-based professional development includes NASA Aerospace Education Specialists, Space Grant Consortia, Educator Resource Centers, and NASA Education Networks.

That is the somewhat boring explanation of what it is about. The real life examples are much more exciting.

Botball, anyone?

Chances are you have never played botball since it is a game only played by robots. But hey, robots have to have fun too, right? For the past three years, Explorer Schools students have been taking up the challenge of building and programming robots to compete with opponents on a field the size of a ping-pong table. The challenge for 2006 was “Search and Rescue.” Robotics teams worked autonomously to locate a stuffed robot and its “tribble” friends. (Star Trek fans understand tribbles. They’re round, furry animals that reproduce faster than the spam in your inbox.) The challenge was to complete various tasks and score points before the opposing robots. (It’s a bit like Survivor, minus the bikinis.)

Search and Rescue (and the other botball challenges) provide middle and high school students with a hands-on application of learning in science, technology, engineering, and math. Competing teams built their robots from an official kit containing things like 1,800 LEGO building blocks, two Xport Botball Controllers (XBC, connected to Nintendo® Game Boy Advance devices), and 20 sensors, including color recognition cameras. After using the parts to build their robots, the students programmed them using a version of the C computer language.

The annual botball challenges have generated such enthusiasm that at least 13 regional tournaments are held across the United States. Hawaii is actively involved, with more than 20 participating schools. The 2007 national tournament will be held in Honolulu in July and will be one of the events of the National Conference on Educational Robotics.

The NASA website quoted Jade Bowman, NES team leader at Hawaii’s Waimea Middle School, as saying, “The Botball program has been an avenue for our students to broaden their horizons in many areas.” Bowman added that the botball program exposed students to new careers, taught them to use a variety of technology, increased self-confidence, developed complex thinking and showed the importance of team play.

Cassini scientists for a day

On January 23, 2006, a group of third, fourth, and fifth grade students in California became “scientists for a day” and selected where to point the cameras on the Cassini spacecraft as it continued its journey through space around Saturn. . These students from Shirley Avenue Elementary School in Reseda, California (part of the Explorer network), had 10 days to study three target options and decide which opportunity would make the most scientific sense. After much debate, they decided to take an image of the planet’s rings.

Mission planners calculated the necessary maneuvers and sent the commands to the spacecraft. The students had been studying Saturn prior to the project, so they had an idea of ​​what the mission entailed.

The “Cassini Scientist for a Day” activity helped them understand how long it takes to gather scientific information and how difficult it is to make decisions. The NASA website quotes the children’s teacher, Kathy Cooper, as saying: “I was surprised to hear a fourth grader say, ‘You need to have a good eye and be patient, because science is not fast, we did it. ‘You don’t learn about the universe overnight; it takes time,'” Cooper says. “The activity brought a higher level of thinking; they kept coming up with good questions.”

Build your own space rocket

Michigan’s Southfield School was the first in the country to be designated a NASA Explorer School. In early 2006, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, announced a $2,500 grant to students in Southfield, Michigan to help them design, build, and launch their own rocket. As part of NASA’s Student Launch Initiative, the project helps students learn more about engineering and teamwork through a hands-on approach to building and launching rockets with payloads.

The Student Launch Initiative is jointly administered by the Marshall Center in partnership with the Huntsville Area Rocket Association, a group of rocket enthusiasts and engineers who launch their own rockets. Each participating student team designs, builds and tests their own rockets, while documenting their progress on a website. Students may seek guidance from professional engineers during the design and test phases. Teams also learn problem-solving skills, how to prepare and present proposals, and how to budget.

Teams display and launch their rockets in a competition. Competing rockets carry a tracking device and a recoverable scientific payload that weighs between a quarter and a half pound. The rocket must reach an altitude of one mile during the flight and be reusable. After the flight, the team collects data from the payload, analyzes it, and reports the results to engineers at the Marshall Center, the project’s mentors, who evaluate each rocket and determine the winners. Winning teams receive a school trophy.

How to become a School Explorer

According to the website, competitive applications are accepted and selection for the NASA Explorer School teams takes place each spring. Up to 50 teams will be added each year, for a maximum total of 150 teams.