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one of the many programs that nasa

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offers to be able to utilize all that

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earth imagery and especially some of the

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photography capabilities from the space

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station is earthkam which is a student

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program

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it stands for earth knowledge acquired

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by middle school students but it's

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actually open to a wide range of

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students and other users joining us to

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talk about that is

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johnson space center's kelly mccormick

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who is from our johnson space center's

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teaching and space project coordinator

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thanks for joining us kelly thanks for

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having me nicole excited to be here and

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talk about earthkam

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why don't you just tell us a little bit

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about the earthkam program

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um well you

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we're we're talking about astronauts and

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scientists and using the iss as a

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research platform and students also use

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the iss as a research platform

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earth cam allows students to program a

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camera onboard the international space

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station to take photographs of earth

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we have about four missions per year

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and the students get to take a look at

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places the um the iss will be passing

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over and then decide on specific

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locations that they'd like to take a

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photograph of

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order the photographs and then get their

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images back

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it sounds fascinating this was actually

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started by sally ride can you tell us a

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little bit about the program and how it

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originated

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um actually after seeing the the view

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from space dr sallyride was inspired and

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in

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1995

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she started the program as kidsat

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the original camera flew on three

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shuttle flights

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and then in 1998 the program was renamed

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earthcam and it became a permanent iss

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payload in 2001.

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how many students or schools have

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purchased or have participated in

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earthkam program

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well we're close to believe it or not

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about

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300 000 now since the beginning of the

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program

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during our last mission which happened

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in late january it was our largest ever

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and we had over 30 000 students in that

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one mission from 26 countries i think

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that's something i forgot to say earlier

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earth cam is an international program so

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students and teachers around the world

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can participate in earthkam

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that is fascinating um how do the

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schools and the teachers use these

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images have you heard stories of of how

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they use them either in their curriculum

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or for other kinds of kinds of projects

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we have heard some great stories and

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it's really up to the teacher and the

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students to design how they wish to use

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earthkam that's one of the great things

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about the program is they can

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use it to fit their needs we had

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students in colorado springs use it to

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study ecology

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it's a great hands-on way to teach

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students about geography when they get

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to pick their locations and

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and and view their images

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we had several students after hurricane

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katrina take photographs of new orleans

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and we've even had

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as i understand it the program is

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actually run by the university of

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california in san diego can you explain

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their role in earthkam yes that's

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actually an interesting story that even

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people that are familiar with earth

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camel a lot of them don't realize that

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aside from the students out in the

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classrooms programming the cameras

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we have students at university of

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california san diego about 25 to 30

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undergrad students per quarter and they

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run mission control and i recently had

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the opportunity to visit

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and it looks very very much like the

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mission control that you're sitting in

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only smaller and this is

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a

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run mission control they write the

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software for earth cam they maintain

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everything

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they answer all the student and teacher

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questions and it's really the missions

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are run by students at university of

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california at san diego

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and well another fascinating thing is

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many of the students go on to pursue

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stem careers because of their experience

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interning with earthkam in fact i

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believe we have two engineers here at

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the johnson space center who

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chose their path based on their

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internship at uc san diego

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wow that really is great to hear and um

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just wonderful to hear that they're so

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inspired and you know leading to working

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at nasa

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um so speaking of we want more people to

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participate in that opportunity and i

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think we have another earth cam session

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coming up correct

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yes we do it's just around the corner it

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begins april 23rd

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and for the first time ever we're

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offering a themed mission it's uh the

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theme is erosion it's called the iss

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erosion challenge and we are challenging

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students to

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learn about erosion on earth by taking

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photographs

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the top five schools

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will be invited to video conference with

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an astronaut here at the johnson space

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center to to discuss what they learned

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to share the research they conducted uh

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to share their images and just really

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chat about um what they learned and see

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the astronaut maybe the images that they

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took from space as well wow that

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challenge sounds really fascinating um

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tell us how it works what do the

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students or schools need to do to be

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part of this it's easy there's

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absolutely no cost

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registration is easy just go to the

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earthkam website which i i believe will

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be up on the screen

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and all the they need to work through

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their teachers the teachers register

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once they register they'll receive some

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codes

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and what they do is they go on and they

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select their their locations and then

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they put in their code this kind of

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serves as like a ticket

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for that request um and then they

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receive their image it really is that

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easy

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and if you haven't been to the teachers

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if you're out there and you

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participated before i encourage you to

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visit the website again it's been

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completely redesigned it's very very

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simple and it leaves the user through

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step by step very very easy to use oh

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and one other thing i want to mention

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nicole is

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it is available earth can we we invite

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scouting groups after school clubs

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it's homeschoolers it's open to anyone

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in the formal or informal education

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community

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that really is wonderful it sounds like

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a great like you said a great

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opportunity for all all sorts of groups

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and students uh to be able to take part

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in

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and this erosion challenge sounds great

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too and that's just in time for earth

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day so a lot of people are focused on

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that and can you just share with us

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again the dates for the next session and

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then the deadline

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it begins april 23rd it runs through the

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26th

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and teachers can register now or even up

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until the day the mission begins

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there is no limit for how many people

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earth can can serve so everyone's