Students and Teachers Become Rocket Scientists at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility

June 14, 2013

Ann Marie Trotta
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1601
ann.marie.trotta@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: 13-186

STUDENTS AND TEACHERS BECOME ROCKET SCIENTISTS AT NASA'S WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITY

WASHINGTON -- More than 120 students and educators will delve into the
world of rocket science June 15-21 during Rocket Week at NASA's
Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore.

Activities during the week will include a RockOn! workshop for 50
university and community college-level participants, and the Wallops
Rocket Academy for Teachers and Students (WRATS) for a high school
audience. All attendees will participate in a sounding rocket launch
scheduled between 5:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. EDT June 20.

"Rocket Week brings together students and teachers from across the
country to experience first-hand the exciting world of rocketry,"
said Joyce Winterton, senior advisor for education and leadership
development at Wallops. "For students, it provides them valuable
experience to blend with academics for their future STEM (science,
technology, engineering and mathematics) careers. The educators gain
valuable experience to expand their curriculum in the classroom and
mentor students for STEM majors and careers."

RockOn! Introduces participants to building small experiments that can
be launched on suborbital sounding rockets. Now in its sixth year,
the workshop is conducted in partnership with the Colorado and
Virginia Space Grant Consortia.

"Working with NASA, we have developed a step approach to expand the
skills needed for students to enter STEM careers," said Chris
Koehler, director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium. "RockOn! is
the first step, followed by RockSat-C and then RockSat-X. Each step
is technically more challenging than the previous one, allowing the
students to expand the skills needed to support the aerospace
industry."

The RockOn! participants will build standardized experiments to be
launched on a NASA Terrier-Improved Orion suborbital sounding rocket.
The 35-foot-tall rocket is expected to fly to an altitude of about 75
miles. After launch and payload recovery, the participants will
conduct preliminary data analysis and discuss their results.

Nine custom-built Rocksat-C experiments, developed at universities
that previously participated in a RockOn! Workshop, also will fly
inside a payload canister on the rocket. About 50 students who
designed and built the experiments will be attend Rocket Week.

Also attending will be university participants in RockSat-X. They are
previous Rocksat-C participants who will fly six custom-built
experiments aboard a sounding rocket from Wallops in August.

In the WRATS program, 20 high school teachers from Virginia, Maryland,
Delaware, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and the District of Columbia will
learn about the dynamics of rocketry and the science gained from
suborbital sounding rockets to reinforce STEM concepts they teach in
their classrooms. They also will attend the planned sounding rocket
launch.

These programs continue NASA's investment in the nation's education
programs by supporting the goal of attracting and retaining students
in STEM disciplines critical to the future of space exploration.

For more information about the WRATS programs, visit:

http://education.wff.nasa.gov

The RockOn! and WRATS workshops are supported by NASA's Sounding
Rocket Program. RockOn! also is supported by 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:


http://www.nasa.gov/education


-end-



To subscribe to the list, send a message to:
hqnews-subscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov
To remove your address from the list, send a message to:
hqnews-unsubscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov