NASA@ My Library is made possible through the support of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Science Mission Directorate as part of its Science Activation program. The project is led by the National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL) at the Space Science Institute (SSI) in partnership with the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office, Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), and Education Development Center (EDC). From 2016-2020, 78 public libraries (75 partner libraries and 3 pilot libraries), 18 State Library Agencies, 6 Portal to the Public Network sites, and 30 NASA-funded scientists participated in the project. More than 225,000 library patrons were reached through their efforts.
In 2021-2022, public libraries, universities, and state library agencies will participate in the project to increase and enhance STEAM learning opportunities in their communities, with an emphasis on reaching audiences underrepresented in STEM education and professions.
NASA's Universe of Learning provides resources and experiences that enable diverse audiences to explore fundamental questions in astronomy, experience how science is done, and discover the universe for themselves. Using its direct connection to science and science experts, NASA's Universe of Learning creates and delivers timely and authentic resources and experiences for youth, families, and lifelong learners. The goal is to strengthen science learning and literacy, and to enable learners to discover the universe for themselves in innovative, interactive ways that meet today's 21st century needs. The program includes astronomical data tools, multimedia resources, exhibits and community programs, and professional learning experiences for informal educators. It is developed through a unique partnership between the Space Telescope Science Institute, Caltech/IPAC, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and Sonoma State University.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Denise SmithGordon SquiresKathy LestitionAnya BifernoLynn Cominsky
In the From Project Mercury to Planet Mars project, the Museum of Science is partnering with national leaders to create two resources, each geared to a different style of learner, that strengthen engineering education and immersive experiences in the nation’s informal education environment. The Museum of Science is collaborating with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and Albert Einstein Planetarium in Washington D.C., the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City, Utah, the Adventure Science Center and Sudekum Planetarium in Nashville, Tennessee, and the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. Through the development of a Planetarium show engaging audiences in the excitement of a human journey to Mars, and a large-scale engineering design challenge activity that allows participants to create design solutions to a Mars exploration challenge, the goal of From Project Mercury to Planet Mars is to increase student and public awareness of human space exploration and inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists. Planetarium show viewers are expected to demonstrate an increased appreciation and interest in future activities in engineering and science, and learn about the technical challenges of space exploration. Design challenge participants are expected to actively engage in the engineering design process and in engineering habits of mind.
The Space and Earth Informal STEM Education (SEISE) project, led by the Arizona State University with partners Science Museum of Minnesota, Museum of Science, Boston, and the University of California Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science and Space Sciences Laboratory, is raising the capacity of museums and informal science educators to engage the public in Heliophysics, Earth Science, Planetary Science, and Astrophysics, and their social dimensions through the National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE Net). SEISE will also partner on a network-to-network basis with other existing coalitions and professional associations dedicated to informal and lifelong STEM learning, including the Afterschool Alliance, National Girls Collaborative Project, NASA Museum Alliance, STAR_Net, and members of the Association of Children’s Museums and Association of Science-Technology Centers. The goals for this project include engaging multiple and diverse public audiences in STEM, improving the knowledge and skills of informal educators, and encouraging local partnerships.
In collaboration with the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD), SEISE is leveraging NASA subject matter experts (SMEs), SMD assets and data, and existing educational products and online portals to create compelling learning experiences that will be widely use to share the story, science, and adventure of NASA’s scientific explorations of planet Earth, our solar system, and the universe beyond. Collaborative goals include enabling STEM education, improving U.S. scientific literacy, advancing national educational goals, and leveraging science activities through partnerships. Efforts will focus on providing opportunities for learners explore and build skills in the core science and engineering content, skills, and processes related to Earth and space sciences. SEISE is creating hands-on activity toolkits (250-350 toolkits per year over four years), small footprint exhibitions (50 identical copies), and professional development opportunities (including online workshops).
Evaluation for the project will include front-end and formative data to inform the development of products and help with project decision gates, as well as summative data that will allow stakeholders to understand the project’s reach and outcomes.
This study explored how different presentations of an object in deep space affect understanding, engagement, and aesthetic appreciation. A total of n = 2,502 respondents to an online survey were randomly assigned to one of 11 versions of Cassiopeia A, comprising 6 images and 5 videos ranging from 3s to approximately 1min. Participants responded to intial items regarding what the image looked like, the aesthetic appeal of the image, perceptions of understanding, and how much the participant wanted to learn more. After the image was identified, participants indicated the extent to which the
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lisa SmithKimberly ArcandRandall SmithJay BookbinderJeffrey Smith
This is a book review of "Cosmos and the Rhetoric of Popular Science" by K. Shroeder Sorensen. Shroeder Sorensen analyses in depth the close relationship of the TV-series Cosmos [1980] with the popular culture, in its broadest sense, at the time of its release. The novel application of Fantasy-Theme analysis to the rhetorical vision of the series reveals how it is the product of a very careful and successful design. The book also compares the original series with its 2014 reboot Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey [2014].
The Exploratorium’s livestream of the August 2017 Total Solar Eclipse reached over 63 million people. Live programs in English and Spanish provided an informal learning experience outside the museum. Over 2.75 million people viewed on-demand videos on eclipse science. Sixty major media providers rebroadcast the livestream telescope feed.
Edu, Inc. conducted a summative evaluation of the NASA-funded project. The study reveals that the Exploratorium successfully disseminated eclipse science and STEM content through media channels and a mobile app, delivering a museum experience to online
In March of 2016, a total solar eclipse occurred in the southwestern pacific; and in August of 2017, a total solar eclipse occurred across a broad swath of the United States. The Exploratorium launched a 2.5 year public education program—Navigating the Path of Totality—that used these two total solar eclipses as platforms for sparking public engagement and learning about the Sun, heliophysics, and the STEM content related to both. These sequential eclipses provided an unprecedented opportunity to build and scaffold public engagement and education. Our strategy was to start the public engagement process with the 2016 eclipse, nurture that engagement with resources, activities and outreach during the 17 months between the eclipses, so that audiences (especially in the U.S., where totality was visible in multiple areas across the country) would be excited, actively interested, and prepared for deeper engagement during the 2017 eclipse. For the August 2017 eclipse, the Exploratorium produced live telescope and program feeds from Madras, OR and Casper, WY. The Exploratorium worked with NASA to leverage what was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for millions to bring heliophysics information and research to students, educators, and the public at large through a variety of learning experiences and platforms.
The core of this project was live broadcasts/webcasts of each eclipse. To accomplish these objectives, the Exploratorium produced and disseminate live feeds of telescope-only images (no commentary) of each eclipse originating them from remote locations; produce and disseminate from the field live hosted broadcasts/webcasts of each eclipse using these telescope images; design and launch websites, apps, videos, educator resources, and shareable online materials for each eclipse; design and deliver eclipse themed video installations for our Webcast studio and Observatory gallery in the months that lead up to each eclipse and a public program during each eclipse; and conduct a formative and summative evaluation of the project.
These broadcasts/webcasts and pre-produced videos provide the backbone upon which complementary educational resources and activities can be built and delivered. Programs and videos were produced in English and Spanish languages. As a freely available resource, the broadcasts/webcasts also provide the baseline content for hundreds if not thousands of educational efforts provided by other science-rich institutions, schools, community-based organizations, and venues. Platforms such as NASA TV and NASA website, broadcast and online media outlets such as ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and PBS, as well as hundreds of science institutions and thousands of classrooms streamed the Exploratorium eclipse broadcasts as part of their own educational programming, reaching 63M people. These live broadcasts were relied upon educational infrastructure during total solar eclipses for institutions and individuals on the path and off the path alike.
How do afterschool programs view their local public libraries? Are they working with them, and in what ways? These are the questions that the Afterschool Alliance, along with its partners at the Space Science Institute’s National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL) and the American Library Association, wanted to answer. Overall, our goal is to build bridges between the afterschool and library fields, so that both can share knowledge and resources to better serve our youth. While our work together has primarily focused on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education through
This award supports the production of a longitudinal video documentary of the evolution of Advanced LIGO and will chronicle the most critical and exciting period in the history of gravitational wave science in the past 100 years. LIGO resumed the search for gravitational waves in 2015 with a newly upgraded detector and on September 14, 2015 detected gravitational waves for the first time, astounding not only the scientific community but the entire world. Using footage captured at critical periods between August 2015 and March 2016 during the discovery phase as well as new filming taking place over the next two years, the team will produce films which will impact at least hundreds of thousands of people and possibly many more than that. The goal is to educate, inspire, and motivate. Students at the high school and undergraduate levels may be more inspired to pursue STEM careers after watching scientific vignettes focusing on the exciting science and technology of Advanced LIGO. Scientific historians and sociologists will have the opportunity to use the hundreds of hours of available film clips as a video database to investigate in detail the discovery of gravitational waves as a case study of large scale collaborations ("Big Science"). Videos highlighting the cutting edge technological advances brought about by Advanced LIGO and their impacts on other fields of science and technology may prove effective for educating officials and policy makers on the benefits of fundamental science.
During the course of the project, a series of professionally made video shorts will be produced for the LIGO Laboratory and LSC for education and public outreach purposes through distribution on LIGO Laboratory, LSC web sites, and the LIGO YouTube Channel. Through an extensive series of film shoots, XPLR Productions will work with the LIGO Laboratory and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) to capture key moments as LIGO scientists work to achieve Advanced LIGO's design sensitivity and carry out a series of observing runs over the next two years. The team will produce a series of video shorts explaining the important scientific and technological concepts and issues of Advanced LIGO by the scientific experts who create them. In the longer term, footage will used to produce either a feature length documentary film or a twelve-part series on television entitled 'LIGO' chronicling the discovery of gravitational waves and the exploration of exotic high-energy astrophysical phenomena such as colliding black holes. Intended for broad distribution through cinema or television, 'LIGO' will bring science to life for a wide audience.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David Reitze
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Understanding the Sun Through NASA Missions. The Maryland Science Center (MSC) initiative is targeted to rural educators and library patrons in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. The Maryland Science Center is lead partner collaborating with Prince George’s County, Maryland Public Schools and its Howard B. Owens Science Center, and with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to develop Educator Workshops and library exhibits for the Maryland counties of Cecil, Kent and Washington and NASA Wallops Visitor Center (Virginia) and NASA’s Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Center (West Virginia). The project will make participants aware and better informed of NASA Heliophysics science and NASA missions studying the Sun. Participants in the programs will come to a better understanding of the Sun, space weather, and the Sun’s far-reaching influence on our planet and the rest of the Solar System. Educators will be better prepared to teach students using NASA-developed hands-on materials demonstrated and provided in the workshops, as well as Sun Spotters and Solar Scopes to examine solar surface features, helping to engage them and their students in better understanding our closest star. Rural libraries patrons will encounter NASA mission science, and MSC visitors will acquire better comprehension of the Sun. All participants will come away with a renewed appreciation of our Sun and how it works, its variability, its ongoing effects on our planet, the nature of the scientific study of the Sun, and how and why NASA is exploring the Sun with its current missions.
Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC), home of the NASA Glenn Visitor Center, is dedicated to sharing NASA content to inform, engage, and inspire students, educators, and the public. To further this goal, GLSC will develop a digital experience focused on collaboration and teamwork, emphasizing the benefits of a systems approach to STEM challenges. At the recently, fully renovated NASA Glenn Visitor Center, GLSC visitors will embark on an exciting mission of discovery, working in teams to collect real data from NASA objects and experiences. Mobile devices will become scientific tools as students, teachers, and families take measurements, access interviews with NASA scientists, analyze results from Glenn Research Center (GRC) test facilities, and link to NASA resources to assemble mission-critical information. This initiative will provide experiences that demonstrate how knowledge and practice can be intertwined, a concept at the core of the Next Generation Science Standards. GLSC’s digital missions will engage students and families in STEM topics through the excitement of space exploration. In addition, this project has the potential to inform the design of future networked visitor experiences in science centers, museums and other visitor attractions.