MACUL Session: Thursday, 1:00-2:00 p.m.
Presenter: Anders Hill, Teacher, Missaukee County Public Schools
Connection: NASA Digital Learning Network, Cleveland, OH
This session started with Anders Hill describing how he uses connections with NASA in his eighth grade science class. He’s used the Cars in Space program with his robotics class, talked to NASA engineers with his rocket unit, and talked to Wilbur Wright about the Bernoulli principle and flight.
NASA started by explaining that all the NASA Centers offer videoconferencing programs to schools, as well as podcasts and webcasts for students. Topics covered include space, flight, ratios and proportions, simple machines, and how to apply science and math to the real world workplace.
Tom Benson showed how he uses the green screen technology to take students to NASA experiments, to the moon, the sun and more! We watched some great video clips of how water behaves in weightless environments. Students always want to know how the astronauts go to the bathroom in space. We saw clips of flying through the International Space Center.
There are a ton of topics and lessons that NASA offers. They are FREE! Most content providers cost something, but NASA’s programs are free.
Tom told us about a class that was connecting to learn about shuttles, and as luck would have it, the shuttle was rendezvousing with the space station. So the students saw it live and Tom narrated the event.
Tom believes strongly that the kids who are in 5th and 6th grade right now will be the ones who make the Mars mission happen.
When kids ask the question, “what do I have to do to become an astronaut,” they put up a big black and white screen with huge letters: DO YOUR HOMEWORK!
The session ended with questions and interaction between the participants and the presenters. Another great videoconferencing session.