These are events for  students in an informal setting developed thematically around the topics of solar system science and astromaterials. These are hands-on, experiential learning opportunities designed to extend solar system science knowledge and to inspire students to learn more. These are usually offered within an existing event. 

These are Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Education events for the public. They usually are part of a larger event; our contribution is connected thematically around the topics of solar system science and astromaterials. These might include sample displays, hands-on activities, and "meet the scientists" opportunities.

Astromaterials Education/Solar System Science: Informal Professional Development
These workshops and trainings for informal educators are developed thematically around the topics of solar system science and astromaterials. The participants are prepared to share the science appropriately with K-12 audiences by extending their knowledge and giving them hands-on experience with classroom activities. These are usually offered within a conference or larger professional development event.…

These are events for students in an informal setting developed thematically around the topics of solar system science focusing on lunar and meteorite science. These are hands-on, experiential learning opportunities designed to extend solar system science knowledge and to inspire students to learn more. These are usually offered within an existing event. 

Mail Stop KA Houston, TX 77058

Calendar in the Sky offers workshops and webinars for informal educators  and latino community leaders to learn about our website content, best practices in working with Latino audiences and partners, and resources they can use in their programming on these topics. We held workshops in the 6 metropolitan areas in the US with the largest latino populations: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Phoenix, and Houston. The workshops are also intended to broker releationships between…

Professional and amateur astronomers plus interested members of the public invited to join the Saturn Observation Campaign. A section of the mission website is dedicated to mission resources and educational material. Planetary observing tips are available as well. 

What: Conduct three or more observing programs or observing events each year, including partnering with local libraries, astronomy clubs or science centers. Members are required to report events on the mission web…

Development and adaptation of existing materials for Out-of-School time settings, including Hasta La Vesta. This includes the adaptation of existing classroom materials for K-12 settings and FY12 continued development of Explorer Guides as stand-alone materials for students. It also includes the collaboration with Discovery to develop a new activity piloted in Small Bodies, Big Concepts using art to deepen visual analysis of images from solar system bodies. The materials were received…

The Dawn Mission E/C is planning to commemorate the arrival of the spacecraft at dwarf planet Ceres with a festival called i C Ceres. We plan to hold a flagship event in collaboration with NASA JPL on the Caltech Campus with both family-oriented activities and special speakers for a variety of audiences May 9, 2015.  Events throughout that weekend will be encouraged all over the country and the world, utilizing materials, special online presentations and resources highlighted on the…

The Dawn bookmark combines the same data used on Solar System Night Boards and will introduce the Dawn web site in preparation for encounter with Vesta in fall 2011. In 2011 Dawn will look to designing a new product based on arrival at Vesta, the Vesta Fiesta refrigerator magnet. In 2012, we plan to update the Dawn mission events calendar to include new images from Vesta.

Webinars and Google + Hangouts in support of Hasta La Vesta and other outreach efforts.

Exhibit on meteorites featuring Vestoids for 300 visitors over the weekend at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science

"Exo's Discovery" is an online interactive learning game. Learners of all ages have an opportunity to explore and learn about our solar system with an alien named Exo who needs help.  Users travel through the solar system in a visually engaging way searching for H20, CO2, and olivine, learning about the planets and small bodies, and the missions that have explored them.

Small Worlds is a section that was added to the Discovery Program website to convey a wealth of information about the many Discovery missions focused on asteroids and comets, why we explore, how we explore, what we have learned, and the importance of this knowledge.  The information is conveyed through text, images, jingles, and an audio feature called Image Impact. 

"Art and the Cosmic Connection" is a curriculum that uses beautiful and compelling NASA images of planets, moons, and small bodies to help students understand and analyze what they see using the elements of art – shape, line, color, value, texture. After viewing images, students choose one image to draw with pastels, honing observation skills as they learn to look and look to learn. The activity is demonstrated in educator workshops and done with students during classroom visits.

Space Thrills! is a wall sheet intended for educators of students in grades K-4.  It is designed to be visually interesting to arouse curiosity about exploring our solar system and to teach about our solar system using language arts.  It is distributed to classrooms through the ERCs, at conferences, and upon request through the web site. Funds cover time spent to respond to requests through the web site. 

Thematic training for college student-mentors preparing to lead a Discovery Program focused NASA Space Science Day event. The NSSD events are sponsored by an EPOESS grant to Charlie Galindo-ARES-JSC. The workshop offers mission content, hands-on experience with classroom activities, and strategies for implementing.

NASA Space Science Days (NSSD) is a science education outreach collaboration that includes NASA-JSC, Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate (ARES), the Discovery and New Frontiers Education Program, and The University of Texas at Brownsville, and Texas Southmost College.  The purpose is to encourage future generations to strive for excellence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Teams of presenters share 10-15 hands-on science activities throughout…

The annual National Afterschool Association convention attracts a wide range of out-of-school time educators. NASA's participation allows scientists and educator specialists to bring engaging science content to build informal educator skills. NASA participants offer workshops and staff an exhibit booth where they interact with informal educators and recommend teaching materials for use in their programs. 

DNF has produced an online quarterly newsletter since 1999.  The newsletter features significant mission events, interviews with mission personnel, current status and E/PO highlights for all the missions.  http://discoverynewfrontiers.nasa.gov/news/newsletters/index.html

Public events take place in a variety of venues that attract adults and students and provide an opportunity to bring information about NASA, space exploration, and the missions to raise awareness, heighten curiosity, inform and inspire. In FY2012, D/NF funded and coordinated a NASA booth at the San Diego Festival of Science and Engineering, aimed at engaging students in STEM activities and helping them see themselves as scientists and engineers. Attendance was 26,000. The event included…

Space School Musical is a play that introduces the solar system to students while integrating science with performing arts, physical education, music, social themes and leadership opportunities. Aimed at upper elementary and middle school students, the play teaches solar system science in a fun and engaging way.  Designed for easy and successful replication, the package includes a DVD of the play performed by high school students, a CD with the songs, and a CD-ROM with teacher tips, an…

DNF provides funds to support for the SSA/SSEP networks of volunteers and educators who bring mission science to their communities and students.  DNF funds cover mission participation in the program and distribution of handout materials to participants.  DNF funds help support a part-time student who works for the two programs. 

DNF thematic workshops for informal educators are a series of workshops designed specially for informal educators.  The workshops bring engaging, hands-on science activities adapted specifically for use in out-of-school time venues such as museums, science centers, afterschool programs.  DNF partners with education specialists to train informal educators at local, regional, and national conferences and events.

Led by Multiverse at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, Five Stars Pathway: Engaging Girls in Science through Multigenerational Mentors project is developing heliophysics curriculum targeting middle school girls to be implemented in Girls Inc. afterschool programs nationwide. 

This project creates resources about the IBEX mission to support the IBEX planetarium show in the form of kits, printed materials, and downloadable files. These materials are distributed by request (and as available) through U.S. educational venues that are presenting the IBEX planetarium show as well as other informal venues.

This project makes the IBEX: Search for the Edge of the Solar System planetarium show available to museums, science centers, nature centers, and planetariums in the U.S.  The purpose of this project is to make IBEX science discoveries available to a large number of informal education venues.  The planetarium show is distributed at no cost through the IBEX E/PO program via the Adler Planetarium.

This project created resources about the IBEX mission and heliophysics in the form of tactile materials for people with visual impairments and online games and activities for people with visual impairments.  The purpose of this project was to make IBEX and heliophysics materials available to people who might not otherwise have access to similar resources.  The tactile materials were all distributed in 2011 at no cost through the Adler Planetarium to interested educators.

The NASA/Ames IRIS Education and Public Outreach team has developed a training presentation which has been given to members of the NASA Museum Alliance, the JPL Solar System Ambassadors program, and similar Informal Educator groups.

Professional and amateur astronomers plus interested members of the public invited to join the Jupiter Observation Campaign. A section of the mission website is dedicated to mission resources and educational material. Planetary observing tips are available as well.

Conduct three or more observing programs or observing events each year, including partnering with local libraries, astronomy clubs or science centers. Members are required to report events on the mission web site. Members…

The first podcast was in April 2007, and it has nearly 4 million downloads since its debut. Podcasts are available on NASA, NASA IYA, JPL, Solar System, and mission websites. They can also be downloaded automatically via iTunes (the most popular format). The focus is always determined by what is A) going on in the night sky and B) mission events we can tie in. Since Jupiter shows up in September, that is when we would highlight Juno.

Most of the products of Kepler E/PO and the resources we use in our presentations and teacher workshops are freely available on the Kepler website (http://kepler.nasa.gov).  These include:

Activities:
http://kepler.nasa.gov/education/activities/

Models:
http://kepler.nasa.gov/education/ModelsandSimulations/

Computer Interactives:
http://kepler.nasa.gov/education/ModelsandSimulations/interactives/

Planetarium shows:

The AEE LADEE activity is a collaboration between the Ames Exploration Encounter and the LADEE mission to produce an interactive multimedia activity for students visiting the AEE. Students participating in the activity assume the role of a researcher receiving and interpreting data from LADEE during its mission. LADEE EPO is providing scientific and multimedia content to the AEE as they implement new activities as part of a center-funded update/renovation of the AEE.

The Challenger Center LADEE activity is a collaboration between the Challenger Learning Centers and LADEE to include LADEE content in the Challenger Center's updated Mission Moon program. Students participating in the lunar mission will be introduced to the fundamentals of the lunar atmosphere and how it is studied. LADEE EPO is providing scientific and multimedia content adapted from the AEE LADEE activity as the Challenger center implements its new Mission Moon program.

The LRO Docent Package is comprised of science background and hands-on activities that educators can use in their institutions. The LRO Docent Package will be available for electronic download on the LRO website: http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov

The Miniature Moon Wall is a portable system that utilizes data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera and Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter to enable the use to "fly" over the surface of the Moon. The Mini Moon Wall is developed for loaning to small informal science institutions on a temporary basis.

The Moon Wall is a museum exhibit at Adler Planetarium that utilizes data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera and Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter to enable the use to "fly" over the surface of the Moon.

The LRO Museum Alliance Training is monthly telecon presentations to the NASA Museum Alliance.  Recent science updates from the LRO mission will be delivered to the Museum Alliance along with relevant educational materials.

LRO Professional Development for Afterschool Providers (PDAP) provides sustained professional development for those whom conduct afterschool programs. The program includes professional development for afterschool club leaders and afterschool programs like the Mid-Atlantic Girls Collaborative. The objective of PDAP is that afterschool providers identify LRO data of suitable use in their programs.

The Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), in close collaboration with the ChemCam science team, including colleagues at the Centre d’Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements in France, is: 1) implementing a week-long educator workshop; 2) implementing a two-day informal educator workshop targeting children's librarians; and 3) maintaining a new media portal. Through these activities, formal and informal educators and the general public will interact with Mars content that will inform them about…

Informal educator workshops, trainings, and personal connections support access to current Mars-related science, engineering, and educational content, as well as interactions with scientists and engineers.  The purpose is to "train the trainers" for leaders of youth programs and networks (including Mars support for Solar System Ambassadors) and to provide museum and out-of-school staff with professional development opportunities.  Training can occur both on-site with partners or through…

This alliance brings real-time, high-definition  imagery and other content to museums, science centers, and planetaria  and to  the wider audiences they serve (created by Mars, it was elevated to an agency level as the NASA Museum Alliance and expanded to include other missions and activities).   The intent is to create increasingly experiential programming that allows the public to participate in discovery as it happens and to come to know Mars as a familiar place, utilizing the…

Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Professional Development for National Park Service Interpreters: The SAM E/PO team reaches out to NPS interpreters who are part of the Earth to Sky network via Webinars to educate them about SAM and MSL, to help them draw linkages between Gale Crater and their own Park, and to share activities and resources that could be adapted for use in most Parks.

Girls go to Mars – a Girl Scouts project to develop engaging activities using MAVEN science and engineering content, culminating in a patch for girl scouts. Estimated dissemination is ~20 troops per state with ~10 girls per troop, or approximately 2,000 troop leaders and 10,000 Girl Scouts nationwide

Girls go to Mars Training – a Girl Scouts project to develop engaging activities using MAVEN science and engineering content.  Trainings for Girl Scout troop leaders are included in the final years of the project. 

Imagine Mars through Native Eyes – a professional development project for informal out-of-school time educators of native young teenagers, which adapts the process-driven MEPPE Imagine Mars project. The MAVEN E/PO team expects to train 30 out-of-school time educators, with a total reach of 900 youth.

MAVEN Invisible Mars Product – a project that builds on a previous NASA Mars Space Weather E/PO project, “Seeing the Invisible,” for Science on a Sphere. The MAVEN E/PO team adapts this script for public audiences.

New Media practitioner professional development workshops – two 2-day workshops for bloggers, journalists, and people actively involved in accurate science tweets on MAVEN-related science, technology and engineering concepts. The MAVEN E/PO team expects to engage approximately 24 media practitioners with national reach.

The MESSENGER Informal education and public outreach (E/PO) efforts provide content-based materials for use in non-classroom settings. High-quality educational materials featuring mission-related themes are developed and disseminated through print, audiovisual, and web-based media. The objective of MESSENGER Informal Education is to provide educators and students, both within the USA and internationally, with access to high-quality, content-rich materials featuring NASA themes that both…

The MESSENGER Informal education and public outreach (E/PO) efforts provide content-based materials for use in non-classroom settings. High-quality educational materials featuring mission-related themes are developed and disseminated through print, audiovisual, and web-based media. The objective of MESSENGER Informal Education is to provide educators and students, both within the USA and internationally, with access to high-quality, content-rich materials featuring NASA themes that both…

This project engages citizen scientists in a study of microbial diversity in distributed domestic water heaters.  It's purpose is to look at the genetic differences from isolates of similar microbes from across the globe to understand the degree to which populations of microbes are isolated and whether this isolation suggests an allopatric speciation model for prokaryotes. Two-three interested households per state in the US will complete a questionnaire and submit samples back to labs…

This project provides training for informal education volunteers working on behalf of NASA.  The purpose is to train the Solar System Ambassadors, SS Educators, and members of other NASA  Nationwide Consortium organizations in the use of astrobiology materials so they may use them in their outreach events.  Telecons and workshops are held to expose the volunteers to astrobiology science and educational materials. In 2011, Solar System Ambassadors held 269 Astrobiology events reaching a…

Family Science Night (FSN) is a curriculum in which middle- school-aged children and their families explore the importance of STEM in our daily lives by engaging in activities that make these concepts more practical and approachable. It covers a broad range of topics, from basic scientific processes to specific concepts such as the electromagnetic spectrum, the life cycles of stars, the reasons for Earth’s seasons, exploration of the Moon, and the ways in which we detect and study…

The Maryland Science Center’s SpaceLink is a New Horizons E/PO partner that falls into both formal and informal outreach arenas. New Horizons scientists and engineers regularly support SpaceLink’s flexible programming, seminars for educators, a menu of classroom programs on request, distance learning teacher presentations, and special live events to highlight mission milestones and space-related anniversaries. This allows the guest scientists and engineers to interact directly with the…

In an effort to educate U.S. Space and Rocket Center (USSRC) museum guests about New Horizons, a model of the solar system has been set up on the Center grounds with placards providing information about each planet. A New Horizons display is set up near Pluto to educate guests about the objectives of the mission.
This is to maintain the exhibit. http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

The LPI/JSC NLSI team is creating a series of library exhibits to share NLSI and NASA lunar science and exploration with the general public through a nation-wide network of librarians, as well as SMD and NASA networks.

Explore the Moon! is a library program in which a team of NLSI SwRI and LPI education specialists and scientists are creating hands-on inquiry based, standards-aligned modules of activities to be used in informal learning environment programs. The activities explore the lunar environment and relate to NLSI science and exploration. The module currently is in development with a completion target of summer 2010.  

Create an adult planetarium show highlighting science that can be done from the moon.

Public events associated with the Lunar and Solar eclipses that were visible to North America.  For the handful of Lunar eclipses between 2009-2012 we had nearly 1000 people in attendance for each event.  Then for the Solar Eclipse of 2012 we had nearly 10,000 people in the Football Stadium at the University of Colorado to view it.  Our event was broadcast on NBC national news.

Explore the Moon! is a library program in which a team of NLSI SwRI and LPI education specialists and scientists are training children's librarians in CO, WY, MT, ID, ND, and SD to engage their communities in NLSI science and exploration. The training encompasses content discussions, exploration of how to engage children in science,  the use of hands-on inquiry based resources, and network planning.  

The goal of the Transit of Venus social media events was to build the excitement around this worldwide event and connect the public to Transit of Venus-related resources in their area.

The goal of this project is to develop resources and events that improve informal education opportunities in solar and Solar Dynamics Observatory-related science.

This project involves active engagement, involvement and support of public communications opportunities such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Flickr, etc., for SDO. Staff makes SDO and Heliophysics visible and "likeable" to the general public by posting current sun and solar information, developing materials to post, educate the public about the sun and solar events, including space weather, making videos and images, etc.

Dawn, Stardust-NExT and EPOXI E/PO leveraged mission materials to offer OST science teachers professional development and curricular support to help them integrate space science involving small bodies into their programs through the DoDEA Space Science Extravaganza in May, 2012.Teachers will engage their students in high-interest, hands-on activities that highlight mission science and enhance learning about comets, asteroids, and the origins of the solar system. In FY13, we will be…

Podcast did not occur and was cancelled due to mission conflict in FY10 plan. Current no plans to reschedule in FY11.

Story mining and Sharing in Informal Education Settings
This is an ARES education activity to mine and share the stories of past and recent solar system exploration missions and the Antarctic meteorite research program. These stories will be used to connect informal audiences to the excitement of scientific discovery experienced by the people in space science research. It includes finding the stories, developing concise, well-told stories using the raw data, and sharing the stories…

Sun-Earth Days (SED) was developed in response to a need for a highly leveraged education framework to help the heliophysics missions tell their integrated and cross discipline stories to the general public, informal and formal education communities.Sun-Earth Days is an innovative, multi-mission, exemplary, and award-winning NASA Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) program that to date has touched over one billion people in 42 countries. Sun-Earth Day provides an established and now…

This description appears in the public listing of project profiles