News - NASA Langley Research Center

Getting NASA into Classrooms Richmond City Public Schools' students are on their way to collecting and sharing science data with other kids around the world with The Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program. Tuesday, November 4, 2014, Elementary school teachers from across the district will be introduced to one of GLOBE's free educational resources – a series of children's storybooks that introduce Earth system science concepts to students. The storybooks cover science topics that correlate to Next Generation Science Standards. The story plots range from studying soil to studying clouds, and teachers are encouraged to read the story with their students and complete the science activities suggested in the books, which require no special instrumentation. Each teacher will receive the book assigned to his or her grade level along with the complimentary learning activities. Giving the presentation on GLOBE's storybooks are Tina Harte and Sarah Crecelius, GLOBE trainers, and Kristyn Damadeo, Education and Public Outreach specialist, from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. NASA is a partner of GLOBE, which is a worldwide hands-on science and education program. "Literacy and science skills complement each other. For example, it's important to teach students about the idea of cause and effect in terms of reading comprehension. In science, we are also looking at cause and effect, just in a different context. In both areas, these storybooks inspire inquiry and investigation," explains Jessica Taylor, GLOBE trainer at NASA's Langley Research Center. The GLOBE storybooks are freely available online in multiple languages, and they are available for print or for digital slideshows. For information on the storybooks and related lessons and activities, visit: http://www.globe.gov/.  >>

From Oct. 4 – 24, during the Virginia Science Festival, Earth Science Week and Read Aloud Week, NASA Langley's Science Directorate invited volunteers to participate in the Earth Science K-5 Storybook Read Aloud event. More than 70 volunteers from six directorates at NASA Langley answered the call to read "All About Earth: Our World on Stage" to a K-5 classroom. Volunteers reached more than 10 different school districts and more than 2,200 students and teachers. They reached as near as NASA Langley's Child Development Center and as far as Southwest Louisiana. Some volunteers got inventive with the delivery of the story, like Susan Kizer and Xia Cai of the Science Directorate, who made water, air, soil and living things costumes for five of the students to wear and demonstrate the Earth's connections as they read the story, which chronicled a classroom preparing for a play about the Earth's connected system. Wes Goodman of the Research Directorate, along with his daughter and her boyfriend, visited Armstrong Elementary in Hampton, Va., where they presented a puppet-style "All About Earth" story using narration and stick images of the book's main characters from behind a curtained wall. From the deck of NASA Langley's Headquarters building, Blain Lege of the Office of Chief Information Officer (OCIO) used Langley's notable vacuum spheres as a backdrop as he virtually read to a class in Lafeyette, La. "I hope I was able to motivate at least one child to get interested in NASA," said Lege, who is from Southwest Louisiana. "By time I was done, everyone wanted to be an astronaut and a star at recycling to help save the Earth." Because dozens participated, thousands of students were able make personal connections to Earth's system and NASA.  >>

NASA Langley Research Center shared their love and passion for Elementary GLOBE at the Regional NSTA Conference in Richmond, VA. Teachers that stopped by NASA's booth received storybook set - with a copy of each of the 5 books! NASA also hosted a session "Elementary GLOBE Storybooks: Building Science Inquiry & Literacy Skills". Participants at the session learned how the free Elementary GLOBE resources enhance literacy skills while exploring the natural world.  >>

On July 1st, NASA will launch the first dedicated Earth remote sensing satellite to study atmospheric carbon dioxide from Space. OCO-2 will launch from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. Instruments onboard will take 24 measurements every second! Together these measurements will help us better understand atmospheric carbon dioxide, the leading human-produced greenhouse gas driving changes in Earth's climate. At a recent workshop, teachers learned about the global carbon cycle and were introduced to a computer model that demonstrates how the various sources of carbon interact with one another. This was part of a GLOBE Carbon Cycle session, led by GLOBE Master Trainer Jessica Taylor. The session was titled, "Using Systems Thinking and Modeling Tools to Better Understand the Global Carbon Cycle." About 20 middle and high school teachers participated in the session as part of the MODSIM (modeling and simulation) week-long workshop for teachers, held at NASA Langley Research Center. Teachers were trained in the GLOBE Carbon Cycle curriculum and learned about OCO-2, NASA's latest Earth-observing satellite mission to better understand global carbon cycle. Materials from the workshop are available online at: http://www.livebinders.com/play/play/1380454. Learn more about OCO-2: http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/ Learn more about GLOBE Carbon Cycle: http://globecarboncycle.unh.edu/  >>

NASA Langley's Science Directorate partnered with the Virginia Living Museum to design and create an Ozone Garden Exhibit, which opened to the public on June 23, 2014. The Ozone Garden collaboration with the museum and NASA began in 2012 with Margaret Pippin, GLOBE Master Trainer at NASA Langley, and John Skelly, a plant biologist and retired professor from Penn State. As an indicator of plant stress, ozone sensitive plants provide a tool to detect and monitor local changes in air quality and effects on the local environment. The ozone garden is designed as a tool to detect and monitor ozone stress on sensitive and tolerant plants. The exhibit is an extension of the LEARN Project, an innovative education program providing authentic NASA research experiences for teachers. For more information on building your own Ozone Garden, visit the Ozone Bioindicator Garden Project website at: http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/ozonegarden.  >>

NASA Langley Research Center hosted a session on Elementary GLOBE at Virginia's 21st Century Community Learning Centers Conference. Participants met GLOBE storybook characters Simon, Anita, and Dennis and saw how their adventures take them on a journey through science. Providers learned about how the GLOBE characters pose questions, make observations, collect data, and arrive at conclusions. These science practice skills are modeled throughout the stories and are a great way to incorporate science in informal learning settings.  >>