David Bixby, elementary school teacher at Hellgate Elementary School in Missoula, Mont., spent a week of challenge and discovery at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The content workshop was designed to provide NASA Explorer School educators an opportunity to gain a greater understanding of the work NASA accomplishes and how to implement that knowledge within their classroom.
“This is an exciting time at Goddard,” says Trena Ferrell, coordinator for the workshop. “Currently Goddard is working a number of science missions and we definitely want to inform and excite educators from across the country. It is most important to inspire our next generation to continue the ongoing work of discovery that NASA has been committed to for almost fifty years.”
The week of activity included multiple opportunities for educators to talk directly to NASA scientists and engineers. Themes related to the work being accomplished at Goddard included the Hubble Servicing Mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Mission (LRO), studies of the Sun and Earth, and Lunar Geology. NASA Education and Public Outreach personnel provided additional educational support presenting hands-on activities for participants to take back to the classroom.
“I find the NASA teacher workshops a valuable way to stay connected to content and careers representing the cutting edge of human endeavor,” says Bixby. “In preparing students for an unpredictable future, NASA projects, technology and research give me a way to peek at the world my students need to prepare for.”
Bixby is one of 19 teachers attending from a NASA Explorer School (NES). The NES program is a three-year partnership with NASA providing investigation opportunities and professional development to spark innovative science and mathematics instruction directed specifically at students in grades four through nine.
“Participants of the Goddard Content Workshop will leave Goddard with a greater knowledge of NASA’s research initiatives and a deeper understanding of what it means to be a NASA Explorer School,” says Ferrell.
For more information about the NASA Explorer School Program, please visit: www.explorerschools.nasa.gov.
For more information about upcoming Goddard missions, please visit: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html
