Virtual Student Event connects schools across the country with NASA’s Rockets 2 Racecars and STEM MANIA programs On April 15, 2015 up to six schools will learn the force of drag and how it is avoided in motorsports yet critical in landing rovers on Mars. Students will be able to interact live with NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson to learn about aerodynamics through racing. This opportunity is thanks to a collaboration with Langley’s Office of Education Rockets 2 Racecars STEM Education program where we correlate the science of racing with aerospace. NASA engineer Jill Prince will present how drag was used in Entry, Descent and Landing of various rovers on Mars. This live event will take place through Google Hangouts on Wednesday, April 15th starting at noon and is a culminating event of Langley’s Office of Education educator professional development program “NASA STEM MANIA: STEM in Sports”. Educators that participated in at least 5 hours of professional development during NASA STEM MANIA are eligible to connect their students from their entire school to this live event. This event is a combination of two Langley Office of Education signature programs: Rockets 2 Racecars STEM Education and NASA STEM MANIA educator professional development.

May – June Trained over 70 teachers online (five webinars) to teach Aerodynamic material, rocket and racing correlations, and solar activities to students (including culturally relevant materials for the represented Spanish community). June 3-7th (Four days) Coordinated, and supported Heliophysics Goddard staff (4) for three days in a public outreach effort to bring NASA solar content to the Pocono Solar Powered track audience (N=estimated 20,000). Using engaging solar activities, educator packages, solar viewers, UV beads, telescopes, and solar related mission materials, the team spent time discussing NASA content to inspire and engage individuals in the relationship between the solar farm at Pocono and NASA’s solar missions. June 4th (3:30-4:30pm ET) Coordinated and presented a live webinar session for educators (N=17) at the Pocono Raceway Solar Farm in Long Pond, PA. The webinar included a Goddard guest speaker for solar content as well a live interview about the solar farm and panels with Pocono Raceway President, Brandon Igdalsky. Downloadable materials included both Spanish and English activities for educators. June 6th (9am – 1:00pm) Worked part-time with students, teachers and families for four hours at the Kids Day Event, Fanzone NASA Exhibit table to teach about the correlation between racing and rocketry (rotation and revolution) at the Pocono Raceway track in Long Pond, PA. (N=estimated 300+ students, teachers, parents). June 7th (8:30am setup, 9:30-10:15am Education Event) Supervised two online-trained teachers who presented NASA activities to students and parents (N=estimated 30 elementary students, 60 parents) for 45minutes at the Jimmie Johnson Racing Ticket Package Event. Afterwards Jimmie interacted with the students, not to mention one of the children asked Jimmie about his favorite planet! Educators can utilize online data from Pocono http://www.poconoraceway.com/pocono-raceway-solar-energy.html http://live.deckmonitoring.com/?id=pocono_raceway as well as from NASA’s Earth’s Energy Budget (through use of the CSI website http://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/module-2/energy-budget.php) and investigate how changes in the atmosphere affect that balance. Additional NASA unique hands-on activities allow teachers in professional development and to explore and increase their understanding of this concept so they can bring the activities into the classroom. The racetracks host NASA tents in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York states. NASA education specialists facilitate these PD along with online webinars for remote locations who are interested in the event.

Provided a requested day long Lunar and Meteorite Disk Certification Educator Workshop (in coordination with the Goddard Space Flight Center Education Resource Center Manager) at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Thirteen Civil Air Patrol (CAP) Aerospace Engineer Educators toured the SAM Laboratory (Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite) and participated in the Lunar and Meteorite professional development workshop. In addition to piloting, each officer is officially tasked to provide education outreach and leadership programs within a specific region of the United States. Many of the officers not only train cadets in leadership programs, but also work with Informal Education (museums) as well as K-12 schools to provide engaging activities in order to help participants understand the STEM behind Aerospace Engineering. The collaboration between Goddard and the Civil Air Patrol is becoming a sustainable effort with the Director of the Aerospace Education who is thrilled to bring CAP officers to NASA GSFC for professional development training. Workshop activities provided educators with geological content about moon rock and meteorites as well as helped to create building blocks for understanding the relationship among science, engineering, technology, and teamwork, necessary for discovery and innovation. This train the trainer workshop demonstrated how planetary features are discovered by the use of remote-sensing techniques such as telescope observations, fly by missions, orbiters, landers, and rovers. Teachers also engaged in many hands-on standards based Moon activities while learning about accretion, differentiation, cratering and volcanism processes. Educators were excited about using the triangulation technique activities (a concept commonly used in flight missions) found within the Exploring Meteorite Mystery Educator Guide, to predict where meteorites might be found. With the Lunar and Meteorite Disk Certification, educators can borrow the Lunar or Meteorite disk and utilize these educational materials, for use within their assigned region of the East Coast.

Coordinated and hosted the second annual all-day, hands-on integrative STEM program in collaboration between The New Jersey School Boards Association and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Friday, May 29, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Out of a developing partnership with the New Jersey School Board Association, more than eighty school districts have been represented at this leadership summit over the past two years in order to deepen understanding of necessary STEM skills and how board members can help empower teachers and students for workplace readiness. This year, board members, teachers, and superintendents (N=57) rotated through five unique Mission Design Laboratory (MDL) stations (ten total stations with about 20 total engineers, for smaller groups). Within each station, one to two Goddard engineers presented content from their branch of engineering (propulsion, thermal, attitude control, communication or power). Participants were asked to interact with the engineers for 15minutes solving real-world problems in order to gain deeper understanding of the science, technology, engineering, mathematics, collaboration, and communication skills necessary to complete a NASA mission. Participants not only gained valuable knowledge of NASA content, but also were able to come up with ways they might utilize this problem-solving, cross-disciplinary approach to learning as a valuable method of teaching within their district. The group had an exciting afternoon, which started with a tour of the Integration and Testing Facility (where various satellites have gone through the MDL process) which hosts instruments and satellites from some of NASA’s greatest missions, including current hardware and components from the James Webb Space Telescope. They also had the chance to learn about the differences between scientists and engineers with two special guest speakers, Dr. John Mather, astrophysicist and winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics, and Dr. Lucy McFadden, one of Goddard’s top scientists, who currently serves as a Co-Investigator on NASA’s Dawn mission (orbits the dwarf planet Ceres). The day concluded with Educational Specialist Resources as well as notable comments from New Jersey’s sustainable STEM coordinator and former NASA Einstein Fellow, John Henry. Mr. Henry explained New Jersey’s new board member STEM certification program (which includes 3 credits for attending the workshop at NASA Goddard), as well as the way in which participants can utilize the engineering design process in order to implement action steps for district’s STEM plans to align with NASA content and resources.

NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center Educator Professional Development Specialist Dr. Barbie Buckner hosted an educator workshop to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope. Fifty-three educators learned how Hubble has allowed astronomers to observe the universe in stunning clarity, revealed properties of space and time, and shed light on many of the great mysteries of the universe making conjectures certainties. Educators heard from Dr. Eric Becklin, Chief Scientist for NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) aircraft, about his work on Hubble as well as SOFIA. While making connections between Hubble and SOFIA, educators build a small scale telescope and then explored onboard the SOFIA aircraft at Hangar 703 in Palmdale allowing educators to experience the NASA unique content residing in their own backyard.

An education specialist from Armstrong Flight Research Center provided a four hour workshop at the AERO Institute in Palmdale, California. Twenty-seven regional teachers and one teacher from New York participated in a professional development workshop. The workshop featured Lunar Disks with moon rock and soil samples brought back from the historic Apollo missions encapsulated in clear lucite. Teachers engaged in hands-on standards based activities while learning about accretion, differentiation, cratering and volcanism. With the Lunar and Meteorite Disk Certification, educators can request to borrow the Lunar or Meteorite disk, for use within their classroom. Equipped with activities, students will have access to view and explore these small portions of these “extraterrestrial” materials. Quotes from Teachers: • Geoffrey Langbehn from Summerwind Elementary School remarked that "Even though the purpose of the workshop was the certification for lunar rocks and meteorites, the workshop provided activities that are relevant to sixth grade science. Specifically, the Lava Layering activity fits nicely with ‘Shaping Earth's Surface’ in the sixth grade science curriculum as does the Impact Craters activity. I look forward to implementing both with my students." • “I am excited to show my students that the elements we study in class are throughout the universe, and here are actual fragments of extraterrestrial rocks with the same elements,” stated Joe Vanasco from Walter O’Connell High School. “Then we can explore percent composition and compare that to earth rocks.”