Sonja Alexander
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1761
sonja.r.alexander@nasa.gov
Keith Koehler
Wallops Flight Facility, Va.
757-824-1579
keith.a.koehler@nasa.gov
Chris Koehler
Colorado Space Grant Consortium, Boulder
303-492-3141
koehler@colorado.edu
RELEASE: 11-187
STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS ATTENDING NASA'S ROCKET UNIVERSITY
WASHINGTON -- NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia will become
Rocket University June 18 - 25
as nearly 125 high school educators and university students and
instructors spend the week learning about rocketry and conducting
science experiments in space.
During the week NASA will conduct the fourth annual RockOn! workshop
for university level participants and the Wallops Rocket Academy for
Teachers and Students (WRATS) for high schoolteachers.
Joyce Winterton, senior advisor for education and leadership
development at Wallops, said "This week will provide opportunities
for students and educators to gain hands-on experiences in science,
technology, engineering and math and expand our educational pipeline
to bring students into STEM careers."
RockOn!, conducted with the Colorado and Virginia and Space Grant
Consortia, is designed to provide participants an introductory
session in building small experiments that can be launched on
sounding rockets.
The nearly 30 participants will build standardized experiments that
will fly on a NASA Terrier-Improved Orion suborbital sounding rocket
set to launch between 6 and 10 a.m. EDT on June 23. The 35-foot-tall
rocket is expected to fly to an altitude of 75 miles. After launch
and payload recovery, the participants will conduct preliminary data
analysis and discuss their results.
In addition to the nine workshop-built experiments, eight
custom-built, self-contained experiments also will fly on the rocket
inside a payload canister known as RockSat-C. These experiments were
developed at universities that previously had participated in a
RockOn! workshop.
University participants in RockSat-X who are flying four custom-built
experiments in July from Wallops also will be in attendance. These
universities had previously participated in RockSat-C.
The inaugural WRATS program will give high school teachers a technical
flight experience to reinforce STEM concepts they teach in their
classrooms. During the week, 20 teachers from 13 states will learn
about the dynamics of rocketry and the science gained from suborbital
sounding rockets. They also will attend the NASA sounding rocket
launch on June 23.
The Teaching From Space office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in
Houston is partnering with the Wallops Flight Facility on the WRATS
program. The program continues NASA's investment in the nation's
education programs by supporting the goal of attracting and retaining
students in STEM disciplines critical to future space exploration.
For more information about the WRATS programs, visit:
The RockOn! workshop is supported by the NASA Sounding Rocket Program,
NASA's Office of Education and NASA's National Space Grant College
and Fellowship Program in partnership with the Colorado and Virginia
Space Grant Consortia.
For more information on RockOn! and RockSat, visit:
http://spacegrant.colorado.edu/rockon
For more information about NASA's education programs visit:
-end-
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