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Audience: Informal

Informal Educators

NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) has an essential role in NASA’s education mission “to inspire the next generation of explorers.” The discoveries and new knowledge from our missions and research programs consistently engage people’s imaginations, inform informal educators – such as museum and science center educators, librarians, and after-school providers – and excite children about science and exploration. Here you will find information that will allow you to:

  • Find programs for informal educators
  • Propose an E/PO project to SMD
  • Partner with an SMD E/PO Community Member
  • Find SMD informal education resources for your programs

NASA Wavelength is an intuitive and searchable database of SMD educational products and activities. Find resources for your programs!

To get started, explore NASA’s Museum Alliance, a community that brings current NASA science and technology to museum visitors.

If you are looking for a speaker for your program or event, consider contacting these networks of volunteers:

If you are an informal educator who is doing – or interested in – education and public outreach, and would like to be part of SMD’s E/PO Community, please contact the SMD E/PO Forum that most closely aligns with your interests; contacts are listed at the top of the PEOPLE tab.

The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Queens College have partnered to provide teachers with a FREE 3 day STEM training on November 14th, 15th and 16th that will provide teachers and schools with GLOBE certification. If you are the first teacher from your school to be certified in GLOBE you will receive a bundle of science instruments and equipment worth $600.00, courtesy Con Edison. 

Day one will be held at the offices of NASA-Goddard…

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NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum have partnered to provide educators a Free STEM workshop that will train educators to implement the BEST (Beginning Engineering, Science and Technology) curriculum into their classrooms and educational programs. Participants will receive a Free BEST lab materials kit and training from Intrepid’s STEM education programs. BEST meets many of the standards associated with the Common Core Standards, Next…

Calling all educators! Are you looking for ideas to create new and exciting programs for your audiences? Celestial events (eclipses, meteor showers, etc.) are seen frequently from Earth while, in this age of planetary exploration, NASA spacecraft are often reaching important mission milestones. Use these celestial events and NASA mission milestones as unique opportunities to engage your audiences in solar system science and exploration! The Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, TX…

Whitney Cobb

  Dawn Mission: i C Ceres Event

October 1, 2014 – 4:05 PM CDT

The Dawn Mission E/PO is planning to commemorate the arrival of the spacecraft at dwarf planet Ceres with a festival called i C Ceres. As we did with Vesta Fiesta heralding the mission’s arrival at the giant asteroid in 2011, i C Ceres will provide a forum and resources for events to be held across the country and around the world. Vesta Fiesta recorded over 100 festivals at museums, observatories, and backyards; from the flagship event at the Pasadena Convention Center that highighted…

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Heather Dalton

  Comet 2P/Encke Peak Brightness

October 1, 2014 – 3:12 PM CDT

Magnitude 6 at peak brightness

Magnitude 6 at peak brightness

Magnitude 6 at peak brightness.

Magnitude 5 at peak brightness

Heather Dalton

  Perseids meteor shower

October 1, 2014 – 2:00 PM CDT

For the general public, teachers and students.

Heather Dalton

  Geminids meteor shower

October 1, 2014 – 1:54 PM CDT

For the general public, teachers and students.

Heather Dalton

  Orionids meteor shower

October 1, 2014 – 1:23 PM CDT

For the general public, teachers and students.

Heather Dalton

  Lyrids Meteor Shower

October 1, 2014 – 12:25 PM CDT

For the general public, teachers and students.

Heather Dalton

  Total solar eclipse

October 1, 2014 – 10:06 AM CDT

This will be a spectacular event with all states in the U.S. experiencing at least a partial eclipse. The path of totality crosses a number of large cities (including Salem OR, Casper WY, Kansas City MO, St Louis MO, Nashville, TN, Columbia SC, and Charleston SC), several national parks (Craters of the Moon, Grand Teton, Great Smokey Mountains, Conagree), and numerous state parks.

Maps from http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov

Heather Dalton

  Total solar eclipse

September 26, 2014 – 9:52 AM CDT

This eclipse will be observed in Hawaii and Alaska on the afternoon of March 8. Western Alaska and the main Hawaiian islands will experience a partial solar eclipse. The path of totality will pass through the region of the Northwest Hawaiian Islands between the Pearl and Hermes Atoll and Lisianski Island.

Map from eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov

Heather Dalton

  Total lunar eclipse

September 25, 2014 – 11:46 AM CDT

For the general public, teachers and students.

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEplot/LEplot2001/LE2015Apr04T.pdf

Like the Oct 8 2014 eclipse, all of the contiguous U.S. will experience the partial phases before totality. The east coast will witness the Moon setting during totality. Observers further west will see all of totality and, progressing westward the partial phases following totality. Totality for this eclipse will be of very short duration, less than five minutes.

Heather Dalton

  Total solar eclipse

September 25, 2014 – 11:14 AM CDT

For the general public, teachers and students. Visble in Norway.

http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar

Heather Dalton

  Partial solar eclipse

September 25, 2014 – 11:12 AM CDT

For the general public, teachers and students. Visble in the southern tip of Africa.

http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar

Heather Dalton

  Mercury – Jupiter conjunction

September 25, 2014 – 11:09 AM CDT

For the general public, teachers and students.

Heather Dalton

  Mercury – Mars conjunction

September 25, 2014 – 10:54 AM CDT

For the general public, teachers and students.

Heather Dalton

  Venus – Jupiter conjunction

September 25, 2014 – 10:46 AM CDT

For the general public, teachers and students.

Heather Dalton

  Mercury – Mars conjunction

September 25, 2014 – 10:27 AM CDT

For the general public, teachers, and students.
 

Heather Dalton

  Venus – Mars conjunction

September 24, 2014 – 3:57 PM CDT

For the general public, teachers and students.

Heather Dalton

  Mercury – Venus conjunction

September 24, 2014 – 3:48 PM CDT

For the general public, teachers and students.

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