Monday, January 28, 2013

Challenger Center inspires love of space exploration

From NWIT Times:  Challenger Center inspires love of space exploration

Challenger Learning Center students explore outer space while still on Earth but thanks to that experience, many start setting their sights to the stars.
The science education center, on Hammond Purdue University Calumet campus, uses space as the hook to get kids interested in career skills related to science, technology, engineering and math, also known as STEM.
It does 95 percent of its work during school based field trips, but also features public programs such as Family Science Night and summer camps, said Becky Manis, the center’s executive director.
New this school year is "Moon Based Explorers", which was developed for students in kindergarten through second grade.
“It’s all part of a simulation where they pretend they are astronauts and use their skills,” Manis said. “It’s Next Generation Standards based. It also meets the Common Core Standards for language and math.”
Kindergartners at Elliott Elementary School in Munster took advantage of the new program.
“They love all the hands-on experiments that help them understand what would be needed to live away from Earth,” said Julie Glavin, a kindergarten through fifth grade science teacher at the school. “They really enjoy putting on their space suits and ‘going to the moon.’ ”
Elliott students have been taking field trips to the center since its inception and currently its kindergartners, third- and fifth- graders visit.
“Its activities provide, inform and enhance the school’s science curriculum,” Glavin said. “Most importantly, the Challenger Center is very complimentary to the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) initiative that is becoming integral in instructing 21st century learners.”
Karey Shanks, who currently teaches second grade at Elliott, said she always enjoyed visiting the Challenger Center when she taught fifth grade.
“This experience provided an event that was memorable,” she said. “Even years after the students left Elliott School, they remembered their Challenger Center experiences.”
The Challenger Center helped her students gain confidence, she said, because it gave them grown-up achievements.
“They really felt like astronauts and did not want to let their team members down,” she said of the life-like experience. It inspired her students to aspire to be astronauts or scientists.
“Lights, sirens, computers, robotic arms, controlled radiation chambers, medical tests, smoke, what was not to love?” she said. The students loved every part of it from the chamber where they entered the space station to problem solving in mission control to debriefing and speaking with astronaut Jerry Ross.
Shanks said the experience was so real that many of her students truly believed they discovered a new object in space, and she was honored when they often chose to name it after her.
The center staff hopes to reach more future scientists with a new underwater astronaut training camp, which they hope to launch as a summer camp, Manis said. Working with SCUBA instructors, camp attendees will mimic the astronauts’ work in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab and practice tasks in the pool.
Another plan for the summer is an intergenerational camp that will bring together grandparents and their grandkids.
Summer camp registration typically begins in March and sessions fill up quickly.
“Our center is not just about space but it’s about the science and engineering and math. It’s about work force ready skills. If you think about our future, how much knowledge citizens will need to be productive and strengthen the U.S. We have such a heavy future ahead of us and we need to prepare our kids for the future. Our programs do that. They inspire kids by using space as the hook.”
Manis said the programs are highly educational with a lot of content built into them so teachers can match many standards.
“It should make it easy for teachers to prove that the field trips they take here are worthwhile.”
For more information on the center, call 219-989-3250 or visit www.clcnwi.com.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

OMG!

Never realized I hadn't posted in over 2 weeks!

Sorry, folks

Things have just gotten away from me the last week and a half...posting should be back on schedule starting this weekend.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Herschel: The Asteroid Apophis More Massive Than Though

From Sci-News:  Herschel: Asteroid Apophis More Massive Than Thought

New observations of the asteroid Apophis made with ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory as it approached our planet few days ago show the asteroid to be bigger than first thought.
Herschel’s view of the asteroid Apophis at wavelengths 70, 100 and 160 microns (ESA / Herschel / PACS / MACH-11 / MPE / B.Altieri / ESAC / C. Kiss / Konkoly Observatory)

Apophis (known as 99942 and 2004 MN4) is a near-Earth asteroid discovered on June 19, 2004 by R. A. Tucker, D. J. Tholen and F. Bernardi at the Kitt Peak National Observatory.
ESA’s Herschel observed the asteroid on January 5-6, 2013 during about 2 hours on its approach to Earth at about 14.5 million km.
“As well as the data being scientifically important in their own right, understanding key properties of asteroids will provide vital details for missions that might eventually visit potentially hazardous objects,” said Dr Laurence O’Rourke of the European Space Astronomy Center in Spain.
Herschel provided the first thermal infrared observations of Apophis at different wavelengths, which together with optical measurements helped refine estimates of the asteroid’s properties.
Previous estimates bracketed the asteroid’s average diameter at 270 ± 60 m; the new observations returned a more precise diameter of 325 ± 15 m.
“The 20% increase in diameter, from 270 to 325 m, translates into a 75% increase in our estimates of the asteroid’s volume or mass,” explained Dr Thomas Müller of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, who led the analysis of the new Herschel data.
By analyzing the heat emitted by Apophis, Herschel also provided a new estimate of the asteroid’s albedo of 0.23. This value means that 23% of the sunlight falling onto the asteroid is reflected; the rest is absorbed and heats up the asteroid. The previous albedo estimate for Apophis was 0.33.
“These numbers are first estimates based on the Herschel measurements alone, and other ongoing ground-based campaigns might produce additional pieces of information which will allow us to improve our results,” Dr Müller said.
“Although Apophis initially caught public interest as a possible Earth impactor, which is now considered highly improbable for the foreseeable future, it is of considerable interest in its own right, and as an example of the class of Near Earth Objects,” said Dr Göran Pilbratt, ESA’s Herschel Project Scientist. “Our unique Herschel measurements play a key role for the physical characterization of Apophis, and will improve the long-term prediction of its orbit.”

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Posting resumes Thursday

I know I've been saying this periodically but this will be the last time I say it...I'm visiting relatives and although they have Wi fi I don't have a private room to work.

I'll be home Thursaday and will get back into the swing of things then.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Russia to allocate 2.1 trln rubles for space exploration by 2020 - Medvedev

From Russia: Beyond the Healines:  Russia to allocate 2.1 trln rubles for space exploration by 2020 - Medvedev

The Russian space exploration industry will receive 2.1 trillion rubles in funding in 2013-2020, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said.

"Historically, our positions in the space exploration field have probably been the strongest in the world, and this should be maintained. Russia has been and will remain a leading space power," Medvedev said at the last government session in 2012 on Thursday.

"The aggregate size of financing is very significant - 2 trillion and 100 billion rubles, including extra-budgetary sources," the premier said.

"Quite a lot of problems" have piled up in the industry, Medvedev said. He recalled that conferences on optimizing the industry's administration and improvement of rocket equipment's quality and reliability were held three times from August to November.

 "The draft government program is aimed at attaining these objectives and ensuring defense capability and security in the development of this country's economy and social sector and further exploration of outer space," he said.

This program would enable Russia to be properly involved in promising joint projects, such as the International Space Station or the exploration of the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies, he said.

Medvedev also emphasized that, given proper funding, rocket industry enterprises must increase their labor productivity and improve the quality and reliability of its products. "As for reliability, I specifically emphasize this word. This is a key factor now," he said.