- Credit: White House
Thousands of middle school students and teachers are to be engaged with NASA through its Summer of Innovation initiative, to be kicked off on June 10.
The effort is focused on stimulating math and science-based education programs.
NASA’s goal is to increase the number of future scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, with an emphasis on broadening participation of low-income and minority students.
The Summer of Innovation program uses the excitement of NASA missions to keep students interested in science and math during the “summer slide,” a measurable loss of learning skills that occurs during the school break.
In January of this year, U.S. President Barack Obama launched a White House initiative asking NASA to use its out-of-this-world missions and technology programs to boost summer learning, particularly for underrepresented students across the nation.
NASA’s Summer of Innovation supports President Obama’s Educate to Innovate campaign for excellence in science, technology, engineering and mathematics – known as STEM.
Partnerships announced
In April of this year, NASA selected partners in Idaho, Massachusetts, New Mexico and Wyoming for the 2010 Summer of Innovation.
“NASA is partnering with these states in a pilot program to address our nation’s critical science, technology, engineering and math education needs,” said NASA Administrator and former astronaut Charles F. Bolden in announcing the Summer of Innovation partnerships.
“Summer of Innovation pairs the strengths of the states with NASA’s unique resources to engage more young people and their teachers and inspire and equip them to excel in these critical disciplines.”
Details of the four selected pilot programs for the Summer of Innovation are:
– The Wyoming Space Grant Consortium’s proposal for “Powering STEM Education in Wyoming with Wind Energy” will focus on a state-wide, intensive, interactive program about climate change and energy that culminates in the development of fully functional wind turbines and weather stations with remote monitoring capabilities for continued research. This project ties aeronautics and climate change together with wind turbines and provides students with an understanding of the impact of climate change locally and globally.
– As part of the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium’s proposal for “Launch and Learn,” participating middle school teachers and students will design and build experiments that study science and engineering problems in suborbital space. Students will launch their experiments on a sounding rocket from Spaceport America in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
– The Idaho Space Grant Consortium’s proposal is a “NASA Education and STEM Program for Underrepresented Populations.” The program has a strong emphasis on physics and a focus on cultural relevance and sensitivities. Middle school students in Idaho, Montana and Utah will be exposed to NASA’s planetary science, robotics, space exploration and aeronautics materials. The participating students will be from schools on tribal reservations in Idaho, Montana and Utah, as well as three locations in southern Idaho.
– The proposal from the Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium will focus on providing NASA’s robotics, Earth and space science, astrophysics and engineering missions to nine Massachusetts educational institutions and industries that serve middle school students and teachers. The project uses innovation in extensive partnerships to reach a broad and diverse population of students through intensive summer engagement programs.
For more information about the Summer of Innovation and NASA’s education program, go to:
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/about/index.html
Special Note:
Live video streaming of the official Summer of Innovation kickoff at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California is to be held on Thursday, June 10, available on the Internet between 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time at:
By LD/CSE