NASA Education and Public Outreach Group
Encyclopedia
Sonoma State University
Sonoma State University is a public, coeducational business and liberal arts college affiliated with the California State University system. The main campus is located in Rohnert Park, California, United States and lies approximately south of Santa Rosa and north of San Francisco...
, founded in 1999, is a provider of educational materials for students, educators, scientists, and the public. Funded by NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
, employees work together to create educational guides, fact sheets, worksheets, posters, games, and informational websites. Most of these educational materials are related to the three major missions that support the group: GLAST
GLAST
GLAST may refer to:* Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, formerly the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope* GLutamate ASpartate Transporter...
, Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission
Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission
The Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission consists of a robotic spacecraft called Swift, which was launched into orbit on 20 November 2004, 17:16:00 UTC on a Delta II 7320-10C expendable launch vehicle. Swift is managed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and was developed by an international...
, and XMM-Newton
XMM-Newton
The XMM-Newton is an orbiting X-ray observatory launched by ESA in December 1999 on a Ariane 5 rocket...
.
GLAST
GLAST (Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope) is an international and multi-agency mission planned for launch in early 2008. The main GLAST E/PO website is: http://glast.sonoma.edu/. Resources provided by SSU’s NASA E/PO are:- TOPS Educational Guides: "Far Out Math," "Scale the Universe," and "Pi in the Sky" are a series of TOPS Learning Systems activity books which introduce students to the science and technology of GLAST while at the same time teaching them basic mathematics and astronomy concepts.
Visit:
“Far Out Math” at http://www.topscience.org/Book_samples/farout_math.html
“Scale the Universe” at http://www.topscience.org/Book_samples/scale_universe.html
“Pi in the Sky” at http://www.topscience.org/Book_samples/pi-sky.html
- Active Galaxies Educational Unit: This is an educator's guide that includes a series of activities and a beautiful poster.
Visit: http://glast.sonoma.edu/teachers/agn/index.html
- GTN: The Global Telescope Network is a consortium of small ground-based visible-light telescopes being used by amateur astronomers and high-school and college students to support gamma-ray observations with GLAST.
Visit: http://gtn.sonoma.edu/
- GLAST Race Game: Who will be the first to build, launch, and make observations with GLAST?
Visit: http://glast.sonoma.edu/teachers/race.html
- Active Galaxy Pop-up Book: This short, innovative book for ages 8-12 has three separate activities, including a popup 3D galaxy showing its features, and the "Tasty Active Galaxy."
Visit: http://glast.sonoma.edu/teachers/popup.html
- Black Hole Fact Sheet: Q&A about the top eight things everyone wants to
know about black holes.
Visit: http://glast.sonoma.edu/teachers/blackholes/index.html#bhfaq
Swift
Swift is a NASA gamma-ray burst explorer satellite, launched on November 20, 2004. The main Swift E/PO website is: http://swift.sonoma.edu/The resources provided by SSU’s NASA E/PO are:
- Gamma-Ray Burst Website: This is a real-time map displaying GRB locations in the sky with additional information about ground-based follow-up and satellite observations.
Visit: http://grb.sonoma.edu/
- GEMS Guide: "Invisible Universe: the Electromagnetic Spectrum from Radio Waves to Gamma Rays." E/PO partnered with GEMS to create an activity book which uses the mystery of gamma-ray bursts to teach about the electromagnetic spectrum.
Visit: http://lhsgems.org/gemspubs.html
- Swift Satellite Model: This booklet contains all the instructions, drawings, and descriptions needed to build a paper model of the Swift satellite.
Visit: http://swift.sonoma.edu/education/index.html
- The Swift Glider: The Swift satellite is named for an agile bird that catches its food on the fly. This is a paper airplane designed to look like a Swift that you can build yourself. The kit comes with pre-printed heavy-duty colored paper, and assembly only takes a few minutes.
Visit: http://swift.sonoma.edu/education/index.html
- Newton's Laws of Motion: This is a set of four posters, one for each law of motion, and one for Newton's Law of Gravitation, with accompanying classroom activities. The activities were created to complement each other as an overall unit, in science and/or mathematics. Newly revised, these reprinted by the fall of 2007.
Visit: http://swift.sonoma.edu/education/index.html
XMM-Newton
XMM-Newton is a European Space Agency X-ray spectroscopy observatory launched in December 1999. In 2003, SSU took the lead for the US portion of the E/PO program. The main XMM-Newton E/PO website is: http://xmm.sonoma.edu . Resources provided by SSU’s NASA E/PO are:- Space Place Black Hole Rescue: In this game, developed with partners at the Space Place, you must rescue words, one letter at a time, before they are pulled in by the powerful gravity of the black hole.
Visit: http://spaceplace.jpl.nasa.gov/en/kids/blackhole/#
Black Hole Rescue is also available in Spanish at: http://spaceplace.jpl.nasa.gov/sp/kids/blackhole/index.shtml
- XMM-Newton Mission Ruler: This English/metric ruler showcases some of the X-ray images obtained using XMM-Newton, and provides descriptive captions on the reverse side.
Visit: http://xmm.sonoma.edu/edu/ruler.html
- Supernova Educator Unit: This is a set of formal activities and background materials about supernovae, with additional support from GLAST E/PO.
Visit: http://xmm.sonoma.edu/edu/supernova/index.html
- Dying Stars and the Birth of the Elements CLEA Lab: In this computer-based exercise, high school and college students analyze realistically simulated X-ray spectra of a supernova remnant and determine the abundances of various elements in it.
Visit: http://xmm.sonoma.edu/edu/clea/index.html
- Portable Planetarium Show: Still in the development phase, this will be an X-ray digital planetarium show designed to use in small portable planetaria.
Visit: http://xmm.sonoma.edu/edu/planetarium/index.html
EAs
Educator Ambassadors- NASA E/PO coordinates the Astrophysics Educator Ambassador Program, consisting of 17 master educators who work with different NASA scientists and E/PO team members at SSU to develop and test workshops and curriculum materials, which are then distributed through the National Science Teacher's Association (NSTA), the California Science Teacher's Association (CSTA) and other regional, state and local conferences.
Visit: http://epo.sonoma.edu/ambassadors/ to meet the Ambassadors, and to see the schedule of upcoming events.
Space Mysteries
Space Mysteries are web-driven, inquiry-based games that are aligned to national science and mathematics standards. Students have fun while learning and trying to solve the original 3 mysteries which were sponsored by NASA’s LEARNERS program: Alien Bandstand, Live! from 2-Alpha and Starmarket. The newest mystery - “Solar Supernova?" - was sponsored by GLAST E/PO and is now ready for you to play!Visit:http://mystery.sonoma.edu/
PBS
SSU’s NASA GLAST E/PO was an important contributor to the PBSPublic Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
NOVA show “Monster of the Milky Way.” Visit: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blackhole/program.html to watch the movie.