Students participating in a U.S. Coast Guard Academy mentoring program will speak with Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank aboard the International Space Station at 11:15 EST on Thursday, Feb. 2.

Burbank, a NASA astronaut and retired Coast Guard captain, will talk to kindergarten through 12th-grade students about life on the space station. The event, hosted by the academy, will be broadcast live on NASA Television and include video of Burbank in the live question-and-answer session.

The mentored students, accompanied by their Coast Guard cadet mentors, will participate from five schools across the Eastern seaboard, including Science and Technology Magnet High School of Southeastern Connecticut in New London, Conn.; The Friendship Academy of Engineering and Technology in Baltimore; Coretta Scott King Young Women’s Leadership Academy High School in Atlanta; Key Biscayne K-8 Center in Miami; and Maritime and Science Academy, also in Miami. Through the guidance of their mentors, students are learning about space and preparing for this interactive event.

Burbank and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin arrived at the station Nov. 15. NASA’s Don Pettit, cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers joined the crew on Dec. 23.

This in-flight education downlink is one in a series with educational organizations in the United States and abroad to improve STEM teaching and learning. It is an integral component of NASA’s Teaching From Space education program, which promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique environment of space and NASA’s human spaceflight program.

The exact time of the downlink could change. For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For information about NASA’s education programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/education

For information about the International Space Station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station

To follow Twitter updates from Burbank, visit: http://twitter.com/AstroCoastie