Check out the Science in Motion abstracts on the HiRISE website.
One of the key goals of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is to make its discoveries and missions accessible to a wide range of educators, students, and the public. To that purpose, SMD has created a series of topical Forums for education and public outreach. The Forums formed a joint working group on Higher Education, which has been looking at how SMD can produce materials that are directly useful for instructors of introductory college science courses (such as Astronomy 101) and how SMD can better engage undergraduate students from groups that are generally underserved in the sciences, including minorities and women.
The working group commissioned two annotated resource guides from veteran astronomy and space-science educator Andrew Fraknoi (Foothill College) that would address these two issues. They are Unheard Voices, Part 1: The Astronomy of Many Cultures and Unheard Voices, Part 2: Women in Astronomy. These two guides include material that can be used by instructors to make their lectures and class activities more inclusive, as well as readings and videos that students can use for projects and papers. The materials are mostly non-technical, so they can be used by a wide range of non-science students taking general education courses in the sciences, including those in public community and state colleges, where many future K-12 teachers begin their education.
Check out the Never Stop Exploring Image Gallery from the Center for Lunar Science and Exploration.
Mathematics is an essential component of contemporary science and engineering. Exploring Space Through Math will help students in grades 7-12 develop a deeper understanding of key mathematical concepts, and learn how to apply those concepts in the context of space exploration. This project can be a valuable supplemental component to a mathematics curriculum as it exposes students to the limitless options in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM fields. Find out about it online at NASA’s Exploring Space Through Math webpage.
Join us for SkyFest on Saturday, May 10. There will be night sky viewing, weather permitting, at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in partnership with the JSC Astronomical Society. View Jupiter and Mars through telescopes and learn about the solar system through hands-on activities. This free public event will be held from 8:00 to 10:00 pm.
The May 2014 issue of the Mars Exploration Science Monthly Newsletter is now available online.
For those of you who missed Seth Shostak’s talk “When Will We Find E.T. and What Happens If We Do?” at the LPI on April 24, a video of his presentation is now available online.