Ann Marie Trotta
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1601
ann.marie.trotta@nasa.gov
Rebecca Powell
Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia
757-824-1139
rebecca.h.powell@nasa.gov
RELEASE: 11-126
NASA OFFERS STUDENTS AND TEACHERS FLIGHT EXPERIENCES
WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. -- Students and educators nationwide will have the
opportunity to interact with NASA engineers and scientists through
two newly developed NASA flight initiatives.
The programs, developed at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia,
are designed to give students and educators hands-on flight
experiences using NASA sounding rockets and scientific balloons.
The Wallops Rocket Academy for Teachers and Students (WRATS) will
provide high school participants with a technical flight experience
to reinforce science, technology, engineering and mathematics
concepts. Teachers and students will participate in person or
virtually in authentic, hands-on experiences based on NASA's sounding
rocket engineering and science data collection. WRATS will include
interactive Web based data to give students and educators lessons in
physics and engineering. Teachers also receive resources to integrate
the data into classroom lessons.
Selected participants in other NASA education projects will have the
opportunity to attend a rocketry flight week June 19 - 24, at
Wallops. Participants will learn about the dynamics of launch, safe
flight operations and view a NASA Terrier-Orion sounding rocket
liftoff on Thursday, June 23.
The Wallops Balloon Experience for Educators (WBEE) provides
opportunities for high school teachers to fly experiments on
scientific flights. WBEE will build upon an existing partnership
between NASA and the Louisiana Space Consortium, which has developed
student outreach programs, including the High Altitude Space Platform
(HASP) and Louisiana Aerospace Catalyst Experiences for Students
(LaACES).
Since 2002, the programs have flown multiple missions involving
hundreds of students in undergraduate though post-graduate programs.
WBEE will expand the LaACES platform into secondary education with a
focus on core principles and future partnership with educators and
their institutions.
WBEE will involve teams of selected educators who have participated in
other NASA education projects. They will visit the Columbia
Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas, for a week-long
workshop in July. Participants will be involved in classroom and
hands-on balloon science activities. The teams will have the
opportunity to build and test their own science payload for a flight
to the edge of space under the direction of NASA and Louisiana Space
Consortium personnel.
The WBEE experience culminates with the launch of these payloads
aboard a NASA scientific balloon. WBEE will be an intensive course
involving a broad-based learning experience educators may implement
at their home schools.
The Teaching From Space office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in
Houston is partnering with Wallops to provide the flights. The
program continues NASA's investment in the nation's education
programs by supporting the goal of attracting and retaining students
in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines
critical to future space exploration.
For information about WRATS and WBEE, visit:
http://education.wff.nasa.gov/
For information about NASA's Teaching From Space program, visit:
For information about NASA's broad range of education programs, visit:
-end-
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