Pupils to Get TV Lessons From Teacher on the Shuttle

‘We have had congressmen go up in space, but Christa will be the first--well let’s say the first normal person--to go up in space.’

Westwood Elementary School science teacher Elaine Gervasi is scrambling to find a satellite dish to install temporarily on the playground so her students can monitor the journey of Sharon Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher to make a space flight.

Students at Mitchell Elementary School in Canyon Country are luckier. Video Satellite Communications Co. has donated an antenna dish and a big-screen television so they can watch the space shuttle crew in action.

The antennas will let students watch broadcasts from the shuttle throughout the day--one of several examples of the education community’s excitement over the first space flight by a teacher.

The flight was scheduled to begin this morning but was canceled late Saturday because of bad weather at Cape Canaveral, Fla. It has been rescheduled for Monday morning.

Educators say they believe the flight is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to bring firsthand experience of scientific research into the classroom.

Coordinating Lessons

To help promote Teacher-in-Space classroom activities, the Los Angeles County Office of Education has mailed local schools 3,000 copies of a curriculum package developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration so teachers can integrate mission activities into their regular lesson plans.

The education office has established an electronic bulletin board that will allow any school with a computer to tap into the county’s computer system and receive up-to-the-minute reports on the mission.

And Classroom Earth, a national network of schools connected by satellite dishes, has established a Teacher-in-Space hot line. For the price of a long-distance call, students can hear a recorded message reporting the latest developments of the mission.

A handful of Los Angeles area schools have taken part in a video conference with NASA officials and Barbara Morgan, the backup teacher astronaut. The program was a preview of the activities McAuliffe and the crew will carry out in the space shuttle Challenger. It was also a test of the satellite network the schools have joined to watch the mission.

Live TV Broadcasts

On the fourth day of the flight, the Public Broadcasting Service and the Los Angeles Unified School District’s television station, KLCS, Channel 58, will feature live broadcasts from the shuttle at 8 and 9:45 a.m.

NASA also has distributed hundreds of “Shuttle Prediction and Recognition Kits” and a booklet explaining to teachers that the kit “will let you and your students learn how to locate the shuttle on any of its orbits.”

“Everybody is really thrilled. We are literally getting thousands of requests for information about the Teacher-in-Space,” Larry Bilrough of the NASA Education Division said.

Gerald Gardner, junior and senior high school science instruction specialist for the Los Angeles school district, said: “I haven’t seen this much excitement in the education community over a space flight since the man-on-the-moon flight in 1969.”

The flight of McAuliffe, a 37-year-old social studies teacher from Concord, N. H., is the inaugural trip of a NASA program designed to open space travel to private citizens. NASA created the program to broaden interest in the space program by having private citizens relate their space experiences from a non-technical viewpoint.

11,000 Applications

More than 11,000 teachers applied for the Teacher-in-Space program. NASA spokesmen say that McAuliffe’s non-scientific background and her interests in American culture, history and women’s issues were points in her favor when applications for the program were reviewed.

NASA is now reviewing more than 2,000 applications from reporters who want to be the first journalist in space. That flight is scheduled for September.

“This is more than just Christa flying, there are going to be a lot of spinoffs from this. Hopefully, these spinoffs will be beneficial for the education community as well as for the space agency,” Bilrough said.

“We have had congressmen go up in space, but Christa will be the first--well let’s say the first normal person--to go up in space.

“Everyone can identify with her. She isn’t some kind of engineer or scientist. She is a high school teacher. Everybody can identify with a teacher.”

The education extravaganza that will surround Challenger’s trip started before the blastoff. Last week, NASA sponsored a two-day seminar for top educators from around the nation near Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Working Teacher

Students from McAuliffe’s New Hampshire school will be in Florida to watch the launch.

McAuliffe will become a working teacher in space. Plans call for her to conduct at least seven experiments that will be filmed for distribution to schools.

McAuliffe will then turn to the television cameras for the live broadcasts, which will feature her teaching two classes. During the first lesson, called “The Ultimate Field Trip,” McAuliffe will take students on a tour of the shuttle, describe crew members’ duties and compare daily life in space to that on earth.

The second lesson, “Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going and Why,” is meant to help students understand why the United States has placed a high priority on space exploration and what technological benefits have evolved from the space program.

During each session, students from McAuliffe’s school and Morgan’s school, in Idaho, will be able to call Johnson Space Center in Houston to have their questions relayed to the teacher.

Preparing Lessons

Los Angeles County teachers have received advance copies of McAuliffe’s lesson plans and information on how her lessons can be coordinated with local science curricula.

Science teachers also have been given several lists of activities to prepare students for the mission. One suggestion calls for teachers to create a display of everyday items--such as digital watches, Velcro fasteners, calculators and microcomputers--to show students some of the products created by space technology.

Another encourages teachers to prepare a list of authors, stories, books and poetry that deal with space and read a selection each day of the flight. Some teachers say they are going to have students keep a journal of Challenger’s flight so they can record their daily experiences, just like McAuliffe, who is keeping a journal of her experiences in space.

And NASA and curriculum designers have not forgotten about young children. Space shuttle coloring books are available for kindergarten and preschool youngsters.

Student Involvement

“This is an opportunity for students of every age level to get involved,” said Lynn Akran, senior project director for the Teacher Education and Computer Center of the Los Angeles County education office. “Hopefully, they will be involved in some kind of activity that will help them remember what they were doing during the Teacher-in-Space flight for the rest of their lives.”

One of the most ambitious projects involves about 2 million students who will be able to keep tabs on Challenger activities through continuous broadcasts that will be transmitted to satellite dish antennas and to cable companies that carry the NASA-Select service.

Students participating in the “Mission Watch” program will be able to monitor conversations between the shuttle and Mission Control in Houston, see the shuttle crew conduct experiments and be part of the daily briefing on the status of the mission.

“We’ll see everything that NASA sees,” said Neil Petzel, a sophomore at Hill High in Spring Valley, Ill., where students have created a mini-mission control center complete with personal computers, telephones and a big-screen television.