The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education oversees a remarkable array of well-designed, high quality education programs. If you are interested in exploring how these programs can be brought to your community, please contact us. 

Journey through the Universe 

A national science education initiative that engages entire communities—students, teachers, families, and the public—using education programs in the Earth and space sciences and space exploration that inspire and educate. In each community: school visits by a National Team of scientists and engineers to thousands of students—one classroom at a time; professional development for potentially hundreds of educators on powerful compendia of grade K-12 lessons; programs designed for family learning and for the public; world-class exhibitions; and distance learning opportunities, together with conceptually powerful experiences delivered via the web, all provide multiple and mutually leveraged pathways for student learning.

Communities small and large can use the content and programming resources available to create a customized Journey through the Universe program that reflects their strategic needs in STEM education; can be delivered systemically across an entire school district; and is designed to be sustainable. Programming is delivered by a National Team of engineers and scientists, and master science educators, from the Center and research and education organizations across the nation.

The Voyage National Program

On a visit to the National Mall in Washington, DC, one can see monuments of a nation—Memorials to Lincoln, Jefferson, and WWII, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, and the Washington Monument. Standing among them is Voyage—a one to 10-billion scale model of our Solar System—spanning 2,000 feet (600 m) from the National Air and Space Museum to the Smithsonian Castle Building. Voyage celebrates what we know about Earth’s place in space and our ability to know it. It reveals the true nature of humanity’s existence—six billion souls occupying a tiny, fragile, beautiful world in a vast space. It uses the remarkable power of models to develop a deep conceptual understanding of our world in the context of a greater Universe.

A seamless fusion of sculpture and science education, Voyage was created in partnership with Challenger Center for Space Science Education, the Smithsonian Institution, and NASA. Voyage was approved by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission for permanent placement on the National Mall.

Voyage is an exhibition that speaks to all humanity. The Center is therefore making replicas of Voyage available for permanent installation in communities across the U.S., and in 2010—world-wide. The Center’s vision is growing an international network of 100 Voyage Communities. The exhibition is appropriate for a park, college campus, or along a main thoroughfare.

You’re invited to visit our Facebook photoalbums for the Voyage exhibition in different communities: Washington, DC, Houston, Texas, Kansas City, Missouri, and Corpus Christi, Texas.

The Voyage exhibition also serves as a focal point for sustainable, community-wide learning experiences leveraged by science education resources tailored to the exhibition, and through programming from the Center's Journey through the Universe initiative. A customized tour brochure puts the exhibition to work as a lab for inquiry-based exploration; a suite of grade K-12 lessons places the exhibition experience within a multi-week unit on the Solar System in the classroom, and powerfully addresses National Science Education Standards and Benchmarks; and Journey through the Universe  delivers programs for students, teachers, families, and the public.

To explore permanently installing a Voyage exhibition in your community, and for information on site requirements, design specifications, and cost, please contact us.

Education Programs for NASA’s MESSENGER Spacecraft Mission to Mercury

On August 3, 2004, NASA launched the MESSENGER spacecraft to Mercury, the second mission to the planet. Unlike its predecessor Mariner 10, which flew by Mercury in 1974 and 1975, MESSENGER will enter orbit in 2011 and begin a full year of observations. MESSENGER is destined to change our view of Mercury—and how our Solar System was born.

A Team of national organizations oversees MESSENGER Education and Public Outreach programming to take the nation along for the ride. The National Center for Earth and Space Science is one of the team members.

The Center oversees:

The development of the grade 5-8 (middle school) and grade 9-12 (high school) Units of the MESSENGER Education Modules—conceptually powerful grade K-12 compendia of lessons addressing Solar System science and engineering. These include the Voyage Education Module on Solar System science, and the Staying Cool Education Module on engineering. A Mission Design Module will be completed in Spring 2010.

The MESSENGER Educator Fellowship Program where we recruit, train, and support a corps of 30 of the best science educators in the nation—the MESSENGER Fellows—which in turn trains 3,000 teachers a year on the MESSENGER Education Modules. As of September 18, 2009, 14,028 grade K-12 teachers have been trained at 609 workshops conducted by the Fellows. It is a remarkable achievement. The goal is to train 27,000 teachers over the mission lifetime (through 2012), translating into experiences for over 1 million students.

Delivery of Solar System content through the Center’s community initiatives, e.g., Journey through the Universe, and Family Science Night at the National Air and Space Museum, with participation by the MESSENGER Fellows and MESSENGER scientists and engineers.

Coverage of MESSENGER Mission milestones on the web through the Center’s online initiative Blog on the Universe.

Blog on the Universe

Launched in May 2009, Blog on the Universe is for anyone who gets joy from learning and aspires to know. It is also dedicated to helping teachers and parents make science an adventure. Every week, posts provide new conceptual nuggets and challenges to foster thought-provoking and inspiring discussions in the classroom and at home. It’s a blog committed to conceptual understanding at an emotional level, helping to make the nature of the world understandable to all, and teachable by both teachers and parents

The compelling posts include a Weekly Challenge, Teachable Moments in the News, Dr. Jeff Speaks Out on the debate of the moment, and the endearing Driving with Jordi. The blog also contains Resource Pages with essays on the nature of our existence in a greater universe, the art of teaching, and the power of models in learning environments; powerful quotes on human exploration; a look at climate change; and resource lists for teachers, parents, and community leaders.

Blogger Jeff Goldstein, Ph.D., is the Director of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education.

Family Science Night at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum

The Center’s Family Science Night program takes place at the most visited museum on the planet. Millions of visitors a year come to the National Air and Space Museum to see the machines that gave life to human dreams of flight in air and space.

A school field trip designed for family learning, Family Science Night is held after hours so that hundreds of students, parents, and teachers from Washington, DC-area schools may have the museum to themselves. Attendees explore galleries, experience the universe through IMAX® films, and hear a presentation by a dynamic space scientist. The presentation is the program’s centerpiece, providing a very personal view of exploration on the frontier and the spellbinding, wondrously human stories behind the machines that changed the world.

The program fosters wonderful opportunities for parents and their children to talk about science, our world, and the cosmos—it helps launch family learning. Schools can choose from 9 presentations and 7 IMAX® films, allowing educators to integrate the program into the curriculum.

With the curricular connection, Family Science Night provides parents a window on the education of their children; schools a way to build bridges to the community; the Museum a chance to augment the classroom experience with their unique collections, exhibits, films, and educational programs; and researchers an opportunity to share what it's like to work on the great frontiers.

Some highlights:

Since it began in 1993, 131 programs have been held at the Museum, reaching 44,700 parents, students, and educators from 177 schools representing 12 area school districts. 

For the 2009-10 academic year, the program is being expanded to the Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport. 

The pedagogy and style of the scientists’ presentations has become the hallmark of the Center’s family and public programs delivered through the Journey through the Universe national initiative, and the Family Science Night learning objectives are now embraced by all of the Center’s programs.

Family Science Night at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is co-sponsored with the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. The program is made possible by a contract from the Carnegie Institution of Washington in support of NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury, and grant from NASA in support of the EPOXI spacecraft mission to study Earth as a planet, comet Hartley 2, and planets orbiting distant stars.

Solar System Research

The Center is committed to ensuring that all its science education programs fully reflect the research experience and are accurate in both scientific content and process. To this end, the Center maintains researchers on staff. They split their time between Solar System research and the development and delivery of national education programs. The Center’s research initiatives include:

Terrestrial Planetary Atmospheres Research: the winds, temperature, and composition of the upper atmospheres of Venus and Mars are studied to gain a richer understanding of the physics and chemistry driving meteorology and atmospheric evolution. These comparative planetary studies also provide invaluable insight into atmospheric processes here on Earth. Studies are undertaken using ground-based infrared spectrometers.

Cooperative Research in Planetary Astronomy: research in support of NASA planetary flight missions, conducted in collaboration with the Laboratory for Extraterrestrial Physics at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The atmospheres of the planets are studied through observations of the infrared light they emit, using spectrometers attached to large ground-based telescopes.

 
Studies of Star Formation and the Origins of the Solar System: testing and refinement of theories proposing that solar systems begin forming when shock waves pass through clouds of gas and dust in interstellar space. Theoretical modeling and computer simulations are conducted that explore how material from a shock wave can be mixed and transported into a forming solar system.