Regardless of your setting (virtual, hybrid or in person), your class size or the age of your students' , space exploration is a great fit! There are so many opportunities to bring it into your classroom. Contests and ChallengesNASA App Development Challenge
Celebrate World Space Week ~ October 4th - 10th - Hosted by the Space Foundation Discovery Center Check out the schedule of daily virtual events for all ages! NASA Commercial Crew 2021 Children's Artwork Calendar Contest
For previous calendars, additional contest rules, themes, calendar template and submission information, click on the link above. Prompt " imagine leading a one-week expedition at the Moon’s South Pole – with the whole world cheering you on. Tell us about the types of skills, attributes, and/or personality traits that you would want your Moon Pod crew to have and why. How many would be in your pod? And of course you’ll need high tech gear and gadgets! In your essay, also describe one machine, robot, or technology that you would leave on the lunar surface to help future astronauts explore the Moon."
11th Annual International Student Art Contest sponsored by the Space Foundation and Firefly Aerospace Upcoming EventsWillow the Water Bear written by: Houston Kidd, illustrated by: Eric Bates
Bob and Doug were part of the first launch of the Commercial Crew program in May when their historic Demo-2 mission headed to the International Space Station. It was celebrated as a return to American soil as the first manned spacecraft since the Space Shuttle to launch from 39A at Kennedy Space Center. It was also significant as the program is a collaboration and the spacecraft was from a commercial company. Crew - 1 is the next Commercial Crew launch. Four astronauts (Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins and Soichi Noguchi) will be traveling to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket. This event is currently scheduled for October 23, 2020. However, like the previous mission, this date is fluid and can change based on numerous things including weather. This year, we celebrate 20 years of continuous human presence on the International Space Station! The goal is to connect space station research to K - 12 classrooms. Each month has a theme and includes related multimedia, infographics, videos and activities.
Opportunities for TeachersInternational STEAM Summit ~ October 12th - 23rd
Space Foundation Teacher Liaison Program
1) Community Outreach 2) Teacher Education 3) Space Foundation Connection 4) Student Engagement
AIAA Foundation Classroom Grant Program
Grants for Teachers This list has been curated by the Space Foundation and is updated on a quarterly basis. What to WatchWhether you're looking for comedy, drama, fiction or documentaries, there are several recently released or upcoming shows and movies available. Space Force - Netflix series Away - Netflix series Challenger: The Final Flight - Netflix documentary The Right Stuff - Disney + series available October 9th Read OnBooks below are listed in order of release date.
The other website tabs will also be updated with this information for future reference!
Peace, love and space exploration, CAPCOM Conrad
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Part 3 Tiny Pixel - Image Revealed from yesterday's post...the Mission Patch from The Martian! How Your Kiddos Can make a Hologram ViewerOverview
Materials
Directions
2. Place transparent material on top of template. Use sharpie and ruler to trace on transparent material. 3. Cut out trapezoid pieces using appropriate tool. 4. Affix trapezoid pieces together, so smaller sides are all at the top. 5. Place upside down on screen (so smaller square opening is down and larger square opening is up). 6. Use device to get hologram video. To view, look through the sides or trapezoid faces. The image on the screen should be visible inside your hologram! Here's an illustration for how to make the viewer. Peace, love and space exploration,
- CAMPCOM Conrad Whenever I hear the word satellite, I think of this song, Cecelia and the Satellite by: Andrew McMahon. Background Satellites are extremely useful tools that allow us to learn more about Earth- especially weather, precipitation, landforms - from a slightly different perspective. Satellites see things in pixels aka picture elements. 1 pixel = 1 square area on an image. Spacecraft use 8-bit data. This means that a computer can have 256 shades of gray...talk about being in a gray area! Binary code - series of 0s and 1s that tell a computer information - also comes into play. The binary numbers are used to determine the shade of grey represented. Later, a person interprets the shades of grey as colors and assigns colors to the images. These related Brainpop videos give more information about the topics and include activities, games, a quiz and a link to Newsela articles to read more! Comparing Pixel SizesAs the pixel size decreases, the resolution increases, making it easier to determine what the picture is. Part 1 (Larger Pixels) - Students put the colored paper in the grid square that has the corresponding number. Part 2 (Smaller Pixels) - Students sort the pre-filled in grid segments to make a large grid. Can you guess what it is? Part 3 will be revealed tomorrow! Binary COde GridingOverview
Code
Roles -> Switch after a grid is completed.
Materials
1. Satellite choses one laminated grid from envelope, keeping it concealed from group members. 2. Satellite describes grid in binary code ONLY. Satellite should NOT tell group what image he/she sees on the grid. 3. Satellite can decide to go pixel by pixel or focus only on the shaded squares. 4. Each Computer receives a blank grid and black crayon or colored pencil. The Computers color in the grid squares based on the Satellite's directions. After the Satellite's directions are complete, Computers can determine image. 5. If group has an Engineer, he/she will get a blank grid. Using the computer's image, he/she will assign colors to black squares and recreate the image in color. 6. Roles switch and above steps repeat. How can I adapt? - Change the pixel images to fit something you're studying in class! - Have students design pixel images. Laminate and use them for the activity instead of printed or copied ones. - Divide a large pixelated image into smaller grids. Give each group a grid. Have all groups combine grids to determine overall image. - Have students determine fractions, decimals, percentages and ratios of shaded and unshaded pixel grid squares. This simple, fun activity is a great way to integrate art, technology, math and space into your classroom!
Peace, love and space exploration -CAPCOM Conrad I was extremely fortunate to be one of nine educators from around the country to receive a scholarship to attend an awesome three day workshop at the Space Foundation in Colorado Springs. It was my first time visiting and it did not disappoint! - If you live in Colorado, I would highly recommend bringing your kiddos on a field trip to the Discovery Center. - If you don’t live in Colorado, I would recommend becoming a Teacher Liaison. There are fore core areas of focus for teacher liaisons; Community Outreach, Teacher Education, Space Foundation Connection and Student Engagement. Applications for the next flight class are due November 23rd. The best part of the workshop, besides meeting rockstar TLs was how applicable all of the activities were to all of us. The TLs all came from different states, different school types, different grade levels and content areas; united by a passion for space education. The activities were exciting, hands-on and so much fun! My brain was constantly thinking about how I could bring this back to my school and share it with my readers. It was a jam-packed workshop, so I will be posting in parts. Each day for the next week, I will be posting an activity or group of activities that we did. I firmly believe that regardless of your excuse (grade level, content area, time, standards I need to cover, etc), you can incorporate space into your curriculum. My hope is that you'll be able to bring new ideas to your classroom and colleagues this upcoming school year! Copy THat, CapcomI’ve done a similar activity in my classroom, but this version was easier to implement with fewer materials needed. I was immediately intrigued by the title and thrilled when it began with the Apollo 13 C02 filter scene (see below). This is a great clip to spark students' interest and give them context for the activity and importance of a variety of skills including problem solving. Overview
* Students are assigned a role for each scenario, but they rotate among the roles throughout the activity. Roles
- unable to communicate directly with astronauts
- Cannot view main build or workstation build
- cannot view main build *If group is 4 members, there are 2 astronauts. One astronauts uses ONLY their right hand and the other astronaut uses ONLY their left hand. Room Set-up Example Procedure 1.Flight Director builds something from materials available, behind their screen. *It's best to start out simple and gradually make the builds more complex. 2. Engineer observes build (once complete), heads back to spot and describes build to CAPCOM. 6. When team is confident in their build, Flight Director checks build and says yes or no* to indicate if build is correct. If build is not correct, team can repeat process above to fix. * Depending on groups, could say: Affirmative or negative GO or NO GO Check communication lines 7. When majority of groups are complete or after a specified time limit, student roles are reset. Flight Director creates new build and process repeats. Materials We used the following:
How can I adapt materials for my classroom? The materials can vary depending on your age group and what you have available. Each workstation should be on a table or desk. The key is to provide each workstation with some type of shield. The shield should be large enough so that hand gestures cannot be used to assist with build. Tri-fold or bi-fold boards work great for this, but you could also use a cardboard box. Each workstation also needs to have the same items used for construction. Do I need to use items that are similar to each other? The reasoning behind using 2 items that are similar is that it forces students to notice and describe what they see to their group members. If a student just said, use the cup, their group members wouldn’t know which cup. I hope this is awesome activity is one that you can see easily implementing in your classroom and sharing with others! All photo credits go to my fellow TL Denise!
Be sure to virtually visit tomorrow for Day 2 of the Space Across the Curriculum Series :) Peace, love and space exploration, - CAPCOM Conrad A new toyIt's been quite a space dream these past few weeks. It all started when I received an e-mail from Liam Kennedy. For those of you who don't recognize that name, he's the inventor of the ISS - Above. He invented it because he wanted to share his passion for space with his grandkids :) I have never met him, but I was very excited to receive his e-mail informing me that my school had been selected to receive a free ISSAbove as part of the ISS-Above is 100 Schools. This project was made possible by funding from CASIS (Center for the Advancement of Science in Space). Well, this earthling and her students are thankful to advance space science at our school. Now, if I lost you at ISS-Above, let me go back. It's a Raspberry Pi that you can't eat. Raspberry Pi is missing an e, but it jam packed with awesomeness. The difference between the ISS-Above and other raspberry pi's, is it's capability. The ISS Above has been programmed to share data about the ISS relative to your location. There are several information screens that go through a slideshow of sorts. You can see a picture of the astronauts on board. You can see the path of the ISS on a world map, it's velocity and countdown to when the ISS will be above you. This little device will light up to tell you how far away the ISS is from your location. Depending on the color and the frequency, you can determine when the ISS will be heading your way. The best part is being able to see a LIVE stream from the cameras on the outside of the ISS. Yes, you can see the Earth from Space LIVE (when it's in daylight). Teachers, it doesn't get much better than this!! The ISS-Above requires an ethernet cable, connection to a monitor or tv and you're good to go! I would highly recommend writing a grant to get one of your own!! Curriculum materials are available to download and the possibilities are endless. I have already been able to experience kiddos' high interest in our new addition and look forward to continue to share this. Teacher LiaisonAfter knowing that an ISS-Above was coming, I was on cloud nine. It got better when I found out that I had been selected as a Teacher Liaison for Flight 15-18. As part of this, I will be able to attend the 34th Annual Space Symposium in Colorado, Springs and continue to share my passion for space-education. I look forward to this new opportunity and the ability to connect with more educators from around the country. There is more than just corn in IndianaI've always been a proud Purdue grad especially because I share that title with many astronauts. The VOSS Model (that I discussed in my previous post) is one of the many space education resources Purdue has. I wasn't sure that there were many other connections, but I was pleasantly surprised when I received a call from Greg McCauley. He is the CEO of the Link Observatory Space Science Institute in Martinsville, Indiana. I hadn't heard of it until a couple weeks ago. I was able to meet with Greg and was very interested to find out that he had worked at JSC for the Apollo 15 - 17 missions!! He definitely shares my passion for space and STEM Education. Through their DiscoverSpace STEM Programs, you can connect your students to NASA Resources. NASA has so many great resources and as educators, we are all aware of the lack of time we have to navigate all of them. You don't have to be in Indiana to access this resource, it's an entirely digital platform and the possibilities are endless! You'll definitely want to look into getting this at your school! These Boots are Made for WalkingYesterday, astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Scott Tingle were on a spacewalk- or more technically known as an Extravehicular activity (EVA) - repairing part of the robotic CanadaArm2. Another teacher called me to make sure I knew that the spacewalk is on and was unaware that one of the ISS-Above screens had told me that it was happening. As NASA TV aired it live, I was able to explain how astronauts train in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) and explain features of the spacesuit thanks to sessions and tours at SEEC, PD from the Indianapolis Children's Museum, and this past summer's Survival Training in the NBL. I absolutely loved seeing kids excited and curious about what was going on. The next scheduled spacewalk is Monday morning January 29th. It's definitely something you should check out with your students. Back to the ClassroomYesterday night, I had my first course as part of the NASA Endeavor Program. After reading more about it and hearing what a great experience it was firsthand from a fellow SEEC Crew member, I decided to sign up. I, like all of you, am a lifelong learner and love school. In the back of my mind, I considered going back to school, but I didn't want to take classes just to say that I did. I wanted to choose something that I was passionate about. So, when I found out that there were classes that used NASA resources to enhance STEM education, I was in. I'll keep you updated as I learn more. Last, but Definitely not least...In T-7 days, I will be returning to Space Center Houston for the 24th Annual Space Exploration Educator's Conference!!!!! To say that I haven't been counting down would be a lie. It's hard to believe that almost a year ago, I began my year in space adventure. When I first saw the 747 and Shuttle outside the Center, I was blown away. When I walked in and saw a lunar capsule hanging from the ceiling, I knew that I was in the right place. Little did I know what a profound impact the stellar conference, the awesome people and the amazing program would have on me as an educator and as a person. I'm thrilled to return this year as a presenter, a veteran, with a new last name, a different job and of course, a whole lot to share. I'm excited to be reunited with the Crew and connect with new space enthusiasts. In case you didn't quite get my enthusiasm, it's gone viral!
It's been great being able to share my space resources with the 6th Grade teachers as they embark on the Earth and Space Science Unit and there's plenty more where that came from. Peace, love and space exploration, CAPCOM Conrad |
AuthorApollo 13 fan. Educator. Lifelong Learner. Third generation Boilermaker. Space Exploration Enthusiast. Collaborator. Click Subscribe to stay updated!Archives
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