High School Teacher Teams Invited to Fly Experiments Aboard NASA Reduced Gravity Aircraft at Johnson Space Center

Application Deadline Extended.

 Please Kindly Distribute the Following Notice RE:  Applications---NASA Reduced Gravity Flight Opportunity Competition for High School STEM Educator Teams---Through Your Newsletters, Networks, and Electronic Distribution Lists

NSTA is seeking high quality applications from teams of high school science, math, and technology teachers who desire to participate in a NASA Reduced Gravity Flight Week program offered through a joint project between NASA Johnson Space Center’s (JSC) Office of Education and Oklahoma State University’s Teaching From Space (TFS) Program.  14 teams of 4-5 educators teaching grades 9-12 (from a single school or a school district) will be competitively selected to travel to Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX to participate in the Reduced Gravity Flight Week July 29-August 7, 2010 and fly their own experiments aboard NASA’s Reduced Gravity Aircraft.  All participants must be US citizens.  For more information or an application, contact Marie Wiggins, Senior Director, Science Education Competitions and Teacher Awards at NSTA at (703) 312-9241 or mwiggins@nsta.org.

For a program overview covering team expectations, what to think about when designing a reduced gravity experiment, planning for your participation in the Reduced Gravity Education Flight Week Program, medical requirements, and more, you are invited to view the Web Seminar archive entitled Reduced Gravity Education Flight Week Opportunity Overview presented by NASA and NSTA.  To view, paste the following link into your web browser:

 https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/jwsdetect/playback.jnlp?psid=2010-03-04.1416.M.28757230AA638ED108292A41253B48.vcr

 NASA reduced gravity flight experiences offer educators the opportunity to successfully propose, design, and fabricate a reduced gravity investigation of their choice with their students; fly the experiment; conduct research in a microgravity environment; and evaluate the investigation.  Educators then share their findings with their students (who are not permitted to fly) and emulate the nature of inquiry to the larger education arena via a community experience of learning and future flight participants.  The opportunity offers educators the opportunity to participate in first class immersive inquiry learning experiences and to engage, educate, and inspire their students in the STEM disciplines using NASA unique content and resources.  In-flight and post-flight video activities allow educators enhanced opportunities to share their experience with the students.  NSTA will support the flight week and provide pre-flight and post-flight professional development related to the experience.

The flight 10-day Flight Week will include training, readiness preparation, and experiment/equipment evaluation prior to actual flight days.  NASA will cover the cost of securing the plane for flight week while the educators secure and pay travel and experiment equipment expenses to participate in flight week.  Each selected team will be paired with a NASA mentor who will fly with the team and provide pre-flight technical guidance relating to the experiment design.

 Selected participants will begin their involvement in the project beginning in April 2010 by participating in a series of training web seminars and initiating work on creating their experiment with NASA. Post-flight participation activities occur through December 2010.  Applications for participation in Flight Week are due at NSTA by March 18, 2010.