hello i'm lynn bonderant chief of the
office of educational programs at the
nasa lewis research center in cleveland
ohio
today's edition of nasa report to
education will look at two educational
programs going on within nasa
the first is nasa's educational workshop
for elementary school teachers which is
sometimes called newest
we will also look at lewis research
center's t-34 aircraft and see how it is
used to promote aerospace education in
several cleveland area schools
but first let's go back to july 1990 to
see how a group of educators came
together at lewis to learn how to
incorporate aerospace educational
materials into their classroom
instruction
in the following few minutes you will
learn about an exciting educational
program
hosted at the nasa lewis research center
in cleveland ohio
it's called new west
nasa's educational workshops for
elementary school teachers the united
states is training scientists and
engineers
foreign-born
seven out of every ten and the colleges
and universities were from a foreign
land
the remaining 3 out of 10 were from the
united states
it told me that our educational system
cannot be poor
but
we're making a mistake someplace and we
need to turn kids on
and it has to be early in their school
life by the third or fourth grade where
we've lost them you uniquely
have
the ability to go and
motivate excite touch so many children
at the age when they are
in their formative stages in particular
in things like getting into interested
in science and math and technology where
this country as you know as well as i
has gone downhill i'll say in the number
of last years and people being kids
being interested in that and it's at the
age of kids which you're associating
with where they really i believe make up
they may not make up their minds but if
they don't
get some type of interest in their heart
for this they're never going to pick it
up later it's unlikely that you're going
to pick it up later
and so it's critical for
in a very parochial sense
for the future of the space program for
you to go out and do what
what we'd like you to do as a result of
this program to turn our students on
to help them dream of reaching for the
unknown
to motivate them to go the extra
distance
these are some of the challenges facing
teachers in america's schools today
with recent surveys and studies showing
that american students are falling
behind the rest of the industrialized
world
in the areas of mathematics and the hard
sciences
nasa has taken an increased interest in
trying to reach these children
through various workshops
seminars
and on-site help sessions
nasa
in conjunction with the national science
teachers association and the national
council of teachers of mathematics
is attempting to get the educators
excited about space
and to get space theme related
curriculum
integrated into the daily lesson plans
of these teachers
nasa supports two programs which bring
the teachers to its centers for two
weeks of intensive hands-on learning and
training
these two programs new mass
nasa educational workshops for math and
science teachers and new west nasa
educational workshops for elementary
school teachers
involve about 200 select educators
out of the thousands that apply each
year
each nasa center hosts 20 to 24
educators in either new mast or newest
i'm really kind of proud that we can be
part of a program that helps
our
elementary school teachers
do the very difficult job that you all
know better or better than i do that you
do
it's awfully important for
the nation uh
to do what you're doing you know we have
an administrator who's
the head of nasa who's absolutely
uh committed to using
nasa which has kind of a unique
uh charm or unique appeal i think to our
younger people
with the astronauts and the flying and
all that sort of stuff
that really does capture them i know it
captures my little boy
um
captures them and maybe even coops them
just a little bit
into doing some of the tougher
coursework as the program began
these 22 educators found themselves back
in school again
14 days of intense hands-on learning
lecturing and field trips welcome to the
icing research tunnel
we'll refer to it as mostly other nasa
facilities are in acronym irt this time
together gave the educators a chance to
grow together
and develop deep friendships as well as
grow intellectually i think the real
intellectual impact
will come
as we go down the road and we look at
some of these materials we use in our
classrooms
with
with colleagues and so on like that um
the emotional impact is something
that
can't be
replicated
so um i guess for me the emotional thing
is something of these two weeks is
something that i'm really going to
that's really going to stay with me i
really want to piggyback to what ben has
just said
that's the personal contact that's going
to be really something that i'm going to
remember
the first day of new west was a time for
everybody to get acquainted
get situated and get brought up to speed
on what they could expect
then the work began
with group lectures every morning by
john hartsfield aerospace educational
specialist
hartsfield talked on a range of subjects
in the fields of aeronautics and
aerospace
the history of flight
the solar system
the space shuttle
and eating and sleeping in space to name
a few
he also had some materials to let the
teachers see for themselves
what it was like to be an astronaut
um
additionally hartsville introduced some
simple projects which illustrated
aerodynamic concepts that could be used
in the classroom using inexpensive
supplies
your host gave talks on motivating
students
projects to be used in the classroom
refrigerator reviewed comet halley and
lunar geology with the teachers
right sea of nectar okay
sea of nectar and i guarantee you can
see every one of these
outside
and introduce them to different projects
on how to incorporate everyday things
into space science related topics so
take 344 000
by 16
that'll tell you how much your loaf
weighs
the newest participants afternoons were
filled with tours of various facilities
on the lewis grounds
the icing research tunnel
propulsion systems laboratory
engines make their thrust by taking air
from in front of them at three low
speeds and throwing it out the back as
fast as they can throw it out the back
and
they do it by pumping it through there
and then do it by heating it
so this is a brute force facility it
doesn't take us long to evacuate
and the hangar where they research
aircraft used in lewis are kept
we always tell the people since we fly
in an urban area we give them an ohio
bell card a master card
on their way
there were also group activities where
the teachers got hands-on experience
with projects for classroom and breakout
groups energy
to the orbiter the momentum it's staying
down here it's a smaller bounce and then
children work with the weight larger
heavier how much farther is it going to
go and they start doing predictions and
don't forget to tell your students there
were no wrong answers in science only
unexpected results
okay
so watch again just the ball part now
i'll watch the orbiter so it doesn't
can we go a little bit higher
there were also group activities where
the teachers got hands-on experience
with projects for classroom and breakout
groups
these breakout groups consisted of six
to eight teachers
working on various projects which were
then shared with the rest of the
teachers during the last days of the
workshop
the groups included comet halley
electromagnetic spectrum microwaves
right in here
and shorter wavelength gamma rays and
x-rays which can be extremely harmful
living on space station freedom
yeah thanks to millie
all of our hunting of phone numbers and
stuff we first got connected
and donna watson with nasa pilot bill
rickey on her experience in the t-34
this plane is used by nasa lewis in
aerospace projects in conjunction with
local high schools and the office of
educational programs
one day the group got to tour the
federal aviation administration's
facilities at the cleveland hopkins
airport
they split up into groups and got to go
up into the tower
the track or terminal radar approach
control
and saw a presentation on careers in
aeronautics
another group project the teachers had
to do
was construct an egg survival system
which was then tested so to speak
at the microgravity drop tower
needless to say
some of them needed a little refinement
afterwards
but the highlight for many of their
participants
was an interactive video conference with
astronaut story musgrave and the newest
group down at the johnson space center
in houston texas
musgrave gave a slide presentation on
manned space flight aboard the shuttle
and his philosophies
and then took questions from both newest
groups
the activity left some deep impressions
on the teachers
when story spent so much time with the
little child bent over looking into the
sand
he did that on purpose
there was a quite a message that it was
brought home to me and it kind of pulled
everything together that we're doing
here
and he said we can spend a lot of time
and we're doing a lot of research and
we're looking at things from different
angles
but do stop and look look at what we
have right here
he brought earth home so close to me
that i will look at everything around me
and much a different viewpoint than i
had ever done before
as the two-week session came to a close
a banquet was held for the teachers
after dinner the teachers had to present
their space exploration songs
once was a lady her name was flo for a
classroom teacher who said she had to go
so she packed up her thing to move to
mars but little did she know she had to
travel through the stars cassiopeia
andromeda hercules on the final day
several of the teachers shared their
impressions of the workshop with fred
povinelli director of the administration
and computer services directorate
the benefits of the newest program are
incredible they will multiply and it is
like a ripple effect
taking the 22 teachers that have
experienced something here at lewis we
will go on and spread that throughout
the country
the difference i think between
passing out information to teachers at a
convention
meeting people at a symposium or at a
conference and passing out information
to twenty thousand educators the chances
of it really getting into the classroom
are very slim
and then you can take 22 teachers
bring them to a nasa center
let them meet the people and all of a
sudden
the information that nasa wants to give
us
becomes a part of us and we now have a
new ownership in it and when someone has
an ownership in something
you take that very personally and you
will make sure that it is taken care of
and it is given out to others
what i have discovered in the two weeks
that i've been here at lewis is that the
people
of the lewis research center are nasa's
greatest resource
they are tremendous these are
professional people who treated us as
professionals they opened their doors
they opened their minds
they would listen to us they answered
our questions
uh i it was exciting for us to see the
pride that they had in their work
there was uh one gentleman at the zero
gravity facility
who really took pride in what he was
doing and he gave us that sense of pride
that we can take back to our classrooms
i think probably this is singularly the
most important activity in which i could
have participated this summer
it was not only
an exciting and productive experience to
visit the laboratories to meet with the
people to have an opportunity to ask
questions of them
i was particularly impressed with their
dedication to what they're doing and
their enthusiasm for it
but i also gained
much
from the outstanding elementary school
teachers that were involved in this
two-week newest workshop
these are really incredible people they
not only talk shop
during the time that they were at the
louis facility
they talk shop
16 hours a day and that may be a
conservative estimate because that was
only during the times that i saw them
following their visit to lewis research
center
the newest teachers are supported and
followed up on through the year by anita
solars
nasa newest coordinator at lewis
research center
if you are interested in learning more
about the newest or new mass programs
please write
national science teachers association
space science and technology programs
5110 roanoke place
suite 101
college park maryland 2074
a project that is currently aimed at
high school students is the lewis
research center's t-34 program
this program involves nasa pilots and
researchers
as well as several area cleveland
teachers and students
the plane is an old t-34 navy trainer
that was retrieved from a storage
facility in arizona
and restored to its present condition by
the lewis research center's aircraft
maintenance division
the plane has gotten a new lease on life
through its use in a cooperative program
between local schools and nasa
the students of brother david martin at
saint edward high school in cleveland
are using the t-34 to measure the
environmental impact
that the waters of lake erie have had on
some park beaches
and various studies at two waste water
treatment plants
copley high school near akron ohio had
their students working on several
projects
including aerial imaging and the
reclamation of land
the t-34 project is designed to excite
students about scientific research
to get involved in the project the
students had to design a program of
study
submit an abstract detailing what their
study was expected to accomplish
determine the equipment they needed
and after the data was gathered prepare
a report on their findings
and they had nothing to begin with no
cookbook recipe no guidance no hints
they had to design it for themselves
i want them to take the film
see what they can do with it maybe it
will answer the question they raised
maybe it won't but that's the beauty of
science and in that sense it'll be a
real learning experience it's not
something that was given to them they
can see now that they can put something
together which is actually their own
in a sense they are creating something
new for each and every one of these
experiments we did some of the projects
at st edwards may benefit the local
community sometime in the future
working on the west side of cleveland
some students are attempting to
determine erosion rates at edgewater
state park
lake erie is slowly shallowing up
because
there's no it's not draining the
sediment's not draining and the water
just hits the beach and it just takes
all the sediment with it so it's it's
rapidly deteriorating and there's no
there's nothing to stop the
erosion there's no plants or grass with
this picture and several others we can
establish the fact that erosion does
occur at edgewater park and it occurs
rather rapidly in
using plants and bushes we can stop the
erosion
another group of students is working on
the east side of cleveland at the
easterly wastewater treatment plant
they are trying to determine the effects
of the effluent plume from the plant
on the surrounding waters of lake erie
by taking various measurements on the
ground
then comparing these with the
photographs taken both with regular
color film
and infrared film they hope to see how
the fluent warms the waters near the
site
and if the chemistry of the water is
affected
at copley high school in akron ohio the
studies focused on aerial imaging
what was the minimum size an object
could be before it couldn't be resolved
along with optical illusions and shadows
and heights
we set one up this time that deals with
optical illusions another one dealing
with shadows for measuring
uh heights and distances apart
from tires
and we did some with the speed of the
plane and velocity of the wind
so they're set up
to try to take a look at can you
determine things
from looking at aerial photographs when
on the ground
side testing it with the nasa project we
could really work together and
it's much more on the spot
you can uh
from the textbooks you can just read
about it but from going outside and
actually being in the pictures you know
analyzing the pictures you can just
learn so much more
in the future it is hoped that other
cleveland area schools will get involved
in the t-34 project
one goal of the project is to involve
more students and schools in a wider
area someday
but for now
some of the cleveland areas young
students are getting a head start on
tomorrow's problems today
in the time that we have left let's
watch a short piece from nasa
headquarters on the space exploration
initiative
history proves that we have never lost
by pressing the limits of our frontiers
last july president bush set new goals
for america's space program when he
announced the national space exploration
initiative
first for the coming decade for the
1990s space station freedom
our critical next step in all our space
endeavors
and next for the new century
back to the moon
back to the future
and this time back to stay
and then a journey into tomorrow
a journey to another planet
a manned mission to mars
inspired by the president's declaration
research into ways of permanently
returning to the moon and exploring mars
is accelerating throughout government
industry and academia
inflatable modules protected by lunar
soil and linked together to form an
expandable base are under study
to explore mars engineers are looking
into a number of robotic rovers that
could serve as pathfinders for manned
missions in this scenario a mars
spaceship is assembled in orbit using a
robot arm
heavy launch vehicles haul up its major
components
once the ship is complete a shuttle
brings in the flight crew
and the journey begins
upon reaching the planet a crew-carrying
lander separates from the mothership
guided by information from an earlier
rover mission it is steered to a
pre-planned touchdown spot
providing a base for mars operations
to ensure that no approach to building a
lunar base and exploring mars is
overlooked
nasa administrator richard truly
recently launched a nationwide outreach
program
seeking new and innovative ideas
the program includes more than 3200
letters from truly to universities and
professional societies an announcement
to industry in commerce business daily
a review of federally sponsored research
and a study by the american institute of
aeronautics and astronautics
nasa's even established this toll-free
telephone number for anyone who would
like to submit an idea
the outreach effort offers this
country's best and brightest a chance to
help shape the future of man in space
station freedom
a lunar base
and journey to mars
a comprehensive plan to extend human
presence in space
well that's all for this edition of nasa
report to education
i hope that you enjoyed the show and
will join us next time
until then this is lynn bondurant saying
goodbye from the teacher resource center
at the nasa lewis research center in
cleveland ohio
you