October
2008

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If you missed the
Satellites & Education
Conference XXI,
you missed more than you'll ever know!

"The best conference EVER!

"M.Y. S.P.A.C.E. ROCKS!"

Hot Topic

2009 NASA eEducation Electronic Professional Development Network Series

Students Selected for 2008 NOAA Scholarships Honoring Dr. Nancy Foster
And
NOAA's Satellite Direct Readout Conference
And
NOAA helps keep south Florida beach goers “in the know” when it comes to their health

NSF Grants Aim To Increase K-12 Science and Math Teachers
by Dave Nagel, T.H.E. Journal

The National Science Foundation this week awarded nine grants aimed at expanding the number of undergraduates pursuing teaching careers in science and math. This week's grants, administered through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, range from $500,000 to $750,000. Thirty such grants have been awarded this year so far. Sixteen were awarded in 2007.

The goal of the Noyce program is to expand the number of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors pursuing roles as K-12 science and math teachers. The grant supports scholarships and other programs for undergraduate students "who commit to teaching in high-need K-12 school districts," according to NSF.

This week's recipients include California State University, Dominguez Hills ($750,000); the University of Texas at Dallas ($$749,255); City University of New York Herbert H Lehman College ($749,900); California State University East Bay Foundation ($750,000); University of Washington ($749,881); University of Wisconsin Oshkosh ($599,817); University of North Carolina at Greensboro ($746,300); California State University Long Beach Foundation ($500,000); and Santa Clara University ($750,000).

In the case of Santa Clara U, the grants will go toward 24 scholarships of $25,000 apiece. In exchange for receiving the scholarships, the university's undergraduates pledge to teach at least two years at the middle school or high school level in one of two designated "high need" local school districts.

Said Santa Clara U's Dennis Smithenry, an assistant professor of education and the grant’s principal investigator: "This grant responds to a critical need for highly qualified science and mathematics teachers, particularly in high-need school districts. It provides significant financial incentives to SCU undergraduates who decide to pursue a career as a science or mathematics teacher. It also allows SCU to strengthen and deepen the links between our undergraduate programs, our fifth-year teacher credential program, and our local school districts."

Santa Clara U reported that it expects the grants to double the number of graduates pursuing math and science teaching careers each year.

Further information about the grants, including abstracts from all recipients, can be found here.

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A star is born. A star is born. A star is born.

Repeat that phrase 4000 times and you start to get an idea what life is like in distant galaxy J100054+023436.

Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and ground-based observatories have found that the galaxy gives birth to as many as 4000 stars a year. For comparison, in the same period of time the Milky Way produces only about 10. This makes J100054+023436 an extreme starburst galaxy.

³We call it the 'Baby Boom galaxy,² says Peter Capak of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA. "It is undergoing a major baby boom, producing most of its stars all at once. If our human population was produced in a similar boom, then almost all people alive today would be the same age."

Capak is lead author of a paper entitled "Spectroscopic Confirmation of an Extreme Starburst at Redshift 4.547" detailing the discovery in the July 10th issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The galaxy appears to be a merger, a ³train wreck² of two or more galaxies crashing together. The crash is what produces the baby boom. Clouds of interstellar gas within the two galaxies press against one another and collapse to form stars, dozens to hundreds at a time.

This isn't the first time astronomers have witnessed a galaxy producing so many stars. ³There are some other extreme starburst galaxies in the local universe,² says Capek. But the Baby Boom galaxy is special because it is not local. It lies about 12.3 billion light years from Earth, which means we are seeing it as it was 12.3 billion years ago. The universe itself is no older than 14 billion years, so this galaxy is just a youngster (Capak likens it to a 6-year-old human) previously thought to be incapable of such rapid-fire star production.

The Baby Boom galaxy poses a challenge to the Hierarchical Model of galaxy evolution favored by many astronomers. According to the Hierarchical Model, galaxies grow by merging; Add two small galaxies together, and you get a bigger galaxy. In the early years of the universe, all galaxies were small, and they produced correspondingly small bursts of star formation when they merged. ³Yet in J100054+023436, we see an extreme starburst. The merging galaxies must be pretty large.²

Capak and colleagues are busy looking for more Baby Boomers ³to see if this is a one-off case or a common occurrence.² The theory of evolution of galaxies hangs in the balance.

MeanwhileŠ A star is born. A star is born. A star is born.

See more breathtaking Spitzer images at www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/mediaimages. Kids can play the new Spitzer ³Sign Here!² game at spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/spitzer/signs.
 

 

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2009 NASA eEducation Electronic Professional Development Network Series
NASA Education Office

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NOAA's Satellite Direct Readout Conference

NOAA invites science teachers and their students from universities,
colleges and secondary schools in the South Florida area to participate
in a special day long event at NOAA's Satellite Direct Readout Conference scheduled for December 8-12, 2008, at the Hilton Miami Airport Hotel.

Registration for each Teacher/Student team will be $50 for the day.
This will cover continental breakfast, AM and PM breaks with food/beverages and admission to all conference events including the trade show and exhibits.

Date: December 9^th , 2008 Time 8:30AM to 5:30 PM

NOTE: NOAA will also be sponsoring a limited number of South Florida area Post-graduate environmental science majors interested in participating in part or all of the conference. (Registration fee will be waived)

For Information and/or to register: call Nina Jackson at 301-713-2089 ext.112

CONFERENCE OVERVIEW:

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Satellite and Information Service is hosting the 2008 Satellite Direct Readout Conference in Miami, Florida, December 8-12, 2008.

NOAA operates both Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES). The data from the NOAA satellites are available to all countries and users world-wide, and are utilized to support a variety of meteorological, oceanographic, terrestrial, solar, climatic, and other specialized data collection activities and services.

During the next decade, the launch of the GOES-R series of geostationary satellites and the NPOESS and METOP series of polar-orbiting satellites will result in significant changes. The changes brought about by these new satellite systems will affect all current and future users of environmental satellites, particularly those who receive data directly from the satellites. In time, all users will need to modify or replace current receiving equipment and basic processing software as the next generations of satellites begin operation.

The focus of the Conference will be on current GOES and POES data access, distribution, and preparing users for the upcoming changes to NOAA satellite programs. NOAA will present users with information on APT, HRPT, GVAR, ARGOS DCS, GOES DCS, LRIT, EMWIN, GEONETCast Americas and other NOAA systems.

NOAA hopes to build on earlier successes in 2002 and 2004, and to make
the 2008 conference even better. Approximately 200 administrators, managers and scientists from 29 countries participated in the last forum
that was held in December, 2004.

Conference website address: http://directreadout.noaa.gov/miami08/

Schools Receive $4 Million in 'Innovation Generation' Grants
By: Dave Nagel, T.H.E. Journal

The Motorola Foundation this week awarded $4 million to 92 K-12 schools and education organizations in its 2008 Innovation Generation grant program. The funding is aimed at supporting STEM-oriented education programs for K-12 students, including after-school programs, science and math clubs, and other initiatives.

In particular, this year, the Motorola grants focused on programs serving groups that are highly underrepresented in STEM careers, with 35 percent of the funded programs targeting female students and 43 percent targeting black students, as well as 23 percent targeting Hispanic students.

"We've reached a threshold in our global competitiveness in math and science where the need to spark and sustain students' interest in these critical skills is paramount," said Eileen Sweeney, director of the Motorola Foundation, in a statement released Monday. "Building a diverse pipeline of critical thinkers, skilled scientists and engineers is a by-product of our efforts that not only will benefit Motorola and our industry, but it also will support a sustainable workforce and bolster the country's competitive advantage in the global, knowledge-based economy."

The Motorola Foundation has awarded some $20 million in grants supporting STEM education since 2005. A list of this year's recipients can be found here.

About the author:David Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's online education technology publications, including THE Journal and Campus Technology. He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com.

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Challenger Center launches Christa McAuliffe's Lost Lessons from Space

Challenger Center for Space Science Education is pleased to announce that Teacher in Space Christa McAuliffe's original lessons are now available for teachers on the Challenger Center website at www.challenger.org. The lessons feature links to videos of Christa McAuliffe and her back-up NASA Educator Astronaut Barbara Morgan performing them on Earth and in ZeroG, and include step-by-step instructions for teachers to use the activities in the classroom with students. Using these activities, teachers can replicate that which Christa would have shared from orbit.

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NASA eClips: A New Approach to Learning

NASA is making available a free Web-based educational product to learners of all ages across the country. NASA eClips consists of more than 55 short, 5-10 minute video segments, which are available on-demand via the Internet for the 2008 -2009 school year.

NASA eClips features many of the agency’s missions and engages students in the excitement of science and engineering. From the deepest regions of space to hurricanes here on Earth, the goal of NASA eClips is to inspire students to learn more about science and math concepts.

“This new product was designed to respond to the needs of today’s educators, and highlights NASA’s commitment to providing science, math, technology and engineering resources in a way that is relevant to tomorrow’s explorers,” said Joyce Winterton, NASA’s assistant administrator for education.

Additionally, the NASA eClips program is separated into grade-appropriate topics and designed as a resource for classroom teachers. Accompanying the collection of NASA eClips will be educator guides to provide teachers with examples of how to effectively use the products as instructional tools.

Students, teachers and the general public can look forward to new video and educational content highlighting current research and innovations each week throughout the school year. The number of video clips is expected to grow to more than 220 by next year. The clips are available at:

http://www.nasa.gov/education/nasaeclips

and

http://www.youtube.com/nasaeclips

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NOAA helps keep south Florida beach goers “in the know” when it comes to their health
By Erica Rule

Beaches are a popular destination for local Floridians and vacationers alike in the Miami area. To insure the good water quality at these recreational destinations they are tested regularly for levels of bacteria. These tests are carried out by the Florida Department of Health in an effort to detect when beach water may pose a health risk. NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) Environmental Microbiology Lab plays an active role in collaboration with the EPA and the University of Miami to increase our ability to identify when beach water may contain disease causing pathogens, and which pathogens are most likely to cause illness.

The program, nicknamed BEACHES, is a study of the incidence of common water borne diseases that typical bathers may contract while at the beach. Examples include gastro-intestinal illness, eye and ear infections, and skin irritations and rashes. The location of the study includes a popular Miami beach (Hobie Cat Beach on the Rickenbacker Causeway), conducted by the University of Miami Oceans and Human Health Center in collaboration with NOAA AOML, the Florida Department of Health, and a variety of other investigators from public and private institutions around the state.

After a baseline health assessment, study participants spend about one hour at the beach either sitting on the sand as a control group or swimming in the water as a test group. Samples are taken of the beach water for analysis. The general health of the participants is then recorded one week later. The goal of the program is to determine linkages between any ailments and elevated levels of bacteria that tend to indicate disease causing microbes.

NOAA AOML’s Environmental Microbiology Lab conducts assessments of the microbes in the recreational waters and beach sand, using EPA standard methods for identifying bacteria that tend to be present when there is fecal contamination. Such EPA standard tests identify bacteria that indicate the possible presence of pathogens as opposed to measuring the actual disease-causing pathogens. In addition to these tests, the program is also using new assays developed in labs like AOML that use molecular microbial source tracking to be able to specifically identify the disease causing pathogens as well as the source of the pathogens, such as dog, bird, or human waste.

The BEACHES program is an on-going study aimed at comparing the actual incidence of disease along-side the EPA bacterial indicators and newly developed molecular assays. Field sampling for this study is expected to be completed by the end of summer 2008. AOML hopes to increase the ability for natural resource managers to more accurately assess the levels of non-point source pollution and thereby reduce the incidence of bather illness.

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Arctic Sea Ice Reaches Lowest Coverage For 2008
Press Release

Students Selected for 2008 NOAA Scholarships Honoring Dr. Nancy Foster

NOAA has selected nine scholars as national recipients of the Dr. Nancy Foster Scholarships as outstanding graduate-level scholars in the fields of marine biology, coastal resource management, and maritime archeology.

The scholarships were established in memory of Dr. Foster’s 23-year tenure at NOAA. A leader in marine resource conservation, she was inspirational in her role as one of the top senior executives in the marine field. Congress created the scholarship in 2000 as a means of honoring her life's work and contribution to the nation.

Each scholarship recipient will receive an annual stipend of $20,000 and up to $12,000 annually for tuition. Doctoral students are eligible to continue the scholarship program for four years and master’s level students for two years.

The nine scholarship recipients are:

Kelly Jones – University of Washington
Kelly Kearney - Princeton University
Emily Klein - University of New Hampshire
Erin Ann LaBrecque - Duke University
Kathleen Morrow - Auburn University
Erinn Muller – Florida Institute of Technology
Rachel Neuenhoff – Texas A&M University
Danielle (Shulman) Staaf – Stanford University
Kimberly Tenggardjaja – University of California, Santa Cruz

This is the eighth year of the scholarship program and NOAA received over 108 applications. A panel of NOAA scientists ranked the applications and finalists were selected based on their ranking scores, financial need, academic excellence, recommendations, and research and career goals.

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.

Understanding Hurricanes

Scientist Kevin Petty, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, studies hurricanes. He is helping to improve hurricane forecasts and warnings by learning how to better predict the intensity and duration of hurricanes.
Running time 2:43 minutes.

Click here to view the movie

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Exploring Space Through Algebra
Next-Generation Spacecraft -- Orion

Sample page from the lesson plan

The Orion spacecraft will replace the space shuttle as NASA's vehicle for human space exploration. Orion is designed to accommodate four to six astronauts traveling into space. This activity focuses on the crew module, one of four functional modules of the Orion spacecraft. Students will find the areas of the largest vertical and horizontal cross sections. This information will provide students a sense of the room within the crew module. Students will also be asked how many crew modules could fit in their classroom. This problem might be extended to larger areas such as the gymnasium or cafeteria.

Next-Generation Spacecraft -- Orion teacher edition [639KB PDF file]
Next-Generation Spacecraft -- Orion student edition [553KB PDF file]


This problem is part of the Exploring Space Through Algebra series.
Other problems in this series include:
Space Shuttle Ascent
Weightless Wonder -- Reduced-Gravity Flight
Extension Activity -- Weightless Wonder


This product is available for printing through
OfficeMax Print on Demand Services  →.

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