A Space Flight of Fancy in Science Class

At the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Carrie Lynne Strasburger took lessons on how to spit candy into a cup of Jell-O, inflate a giant trash bag and toss M&M;’s into ice cream--not the most challenging of tasks for a 44-year-old sixth-grade science teacher.

But she’s convinced that what she has learned will get her students fired up about science.

“I have students who don’t even realize we’ve been to the moon,” said Strasburger, who teaches at Williamsburg Middle School in Arlington, Va. “Kids have MTV, Nintendo and [Sony] Play Stations, but they’re oblivious about science.”

Last month, 25 teachers from 16 states and a school in South Korea participated in a two-week workshop sponsored by NASA, allowing them to learn about real-world applications of the subjects they teach: science, mathematics, geography and technology.

They observed research at Caltech’s labs, toured the Deep Space Network tracking station near Barstow, and learned about airplane propulsion at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base.

But they had the most fun doing their own low-tech experiments, which they planned to take back to their fifth-through eighth-grade students.

“We enjoyed it so much--we felt like kids ourselves,” said Strasburger, who wore a denim shirt embroidered with her school’s name.

The teachers will return to their classes armed with activities such as “the incredible edible comet,” which uses ice cream and toppings to teach students the anatomy of a comet.

Jen McSheffrey, 31, who teaches at the Osan American Elementary School in South Korea, said of the sugary, melting project: “We’ll just have to make sure to give this to them at the end of the day.”

The teachers also inflated a giant black plastic tarp using a box fan and poked holes through it with ball point pens to create a makeshift planetarium.

The objects, they learned, can serve a useful purpose in the classroom, not only to teach science but to hone writing skills. Teachers might first instruct students to draw constellations on paper, then to write fictional stories about their star patterns, and to match their sketches with the patterns they see in the planetarium.

“These are things anyone can do,” Strasburger said. “Even for the teachers who may only have $50 a year to spend.”

The annual workshops are co-sponsored by the National Science Teachers Assn. and take place at 10 NASA centers around the country. Since they began in 1984, more than 4,750 educators have participated.

The workshops are divided by grade level: preschool and kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school. Teachers can receive graduate or professional development credits for participating. Travel, housing and meals are provided by NASA.

To apply, teachers must be U.S. citizens and be certified by their state departments of education. They must also teach full time in U.S. or U.S.-affiliated schools and have a minimum of three years’ teaching experience. This year, NASA accepted 300 out of 1,200 applicants.

On this particular morning, the 30 teachers attending the workshop at the NASA educator resource center in Pomona were eager to learn about Mars.

“Where would you land on Earth that is representative of Earth, if you were an alien?” Black asked.

“My house!” shouted one teacher from the back of the room.

The teachers laughed.

“Hawaii?” responded Debra Gonchros, a seventh-grade science teacher from Kapa’a, Hawaii.

“But is Hawaii representative of Earth?” Black asked.

“Yes,” said Gonchros, “We have rain forests, volcanoes, snow, desert and water.”

Black said teachers might start a discussion like this with students to introduce a lesson on how NASA astronauts use Mars exploration rovers to map safe landing spots on the planet’s surface.

The teachers also learned ways their students could participate in NASA space research.

The Mars Student Imaging Project, which is affiliated with NASA and Arizona State University, allows fifth-through 12-graders to analyze and map images from the spacecraft Odyssey, which is orbiting Mars.

Any student group can participate by sending a proposal for a scientific research question members would like answered about the planet’s surface. A review board selects student teams to travel to Arizona State in Tempe, Ariz. for training with Odyssey mission scientists. The school or the students are responsible for room, board and transportation.

Those who are not selected or who are unable to go can conduct the experiment over the Internet for free. The Web site address is msip.asu.edu. Students can ask the Odyssey astronauts to take images of certain areas and transmit the images to Earth for the students to map and study.

Teachers applaud the concept.

“They’ll see how the scientific method works in real life,” said Dana Glidden, a science teacher at Orangeview Junior High School in Anaheim. “They’ll know that their data matters and will want to do it right, because their work makes a difference.”

“Besides, have you ever met a kid that didn’t want to talk to an astronaut?” asked Mary Kathryn Erdelt, an eighth-grade science teacher from Palacios, Texas.

Erdelt said her experience at the NASA program had reenergized her. “I was just about at teacher burnout, and this has picked me up,” she said.

On the last day, the teachers packed stacks of books, pamphlets, posters and computer software that they could use to teach the new lessons.

“There are more resources out there than we know,” Glidden said. “We sit in our classrooms and think, ‘Oh, my God! This is all I have to use,’ looking in old boxes in our classrooms....

“If we participate in these projects, I guarantee you’ll hear ‘Cool!’ all the way down the hall. They’ll want to come to science.”