 Chief of the Office of Educational Programs at the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Today's edition of NASA Report to Education will look at two educational programs going on within NASA. The first is NASA's educational workshop for elementary school teachers, which is sometimes called newest. We will also look at Lewis Research Center's T-34 aircraft and see how it is used to promote aerospace education in several Cleveland area schools. But first let's go back to July 1990 to see how a group of educators came together at Lewis to learn how to incorporate aerospace educational materials into their classroom instruction. In a few minutes you will learn about an exciting educational program hosted at the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. It's called New West, NASA's educational workshops for elementary school teachers. The United States is training scientists and engineers, four and born, seven out of every ten, and the colleges and universities were from a foreign land. The remaining three out of ten were from the United States. It told me that our educational system cannot be poor, but we're making a mistake someplace and we need to turn kids on and it has to be early in their school life by the third or fourth grade or we've lost them. You uniquely have the ability to go and motivate, excite, touch so many children at the age when they are in their formative stages, in particular in things like getting interested in science and math and technology, where this country as you know as well as I has gone downhill I'll say in the number of last years and kids being interested in that and it's at the age of kids which you're associating with where they really I believe make up, they may not make up their minds but if they don't get some type of interest in their heart for this they're never going to pick it up later. It's unlikely that they're going to pick it up later and so it's critical in a very parochial sense for the future of the space program for you to go out and do what we'd like you to do as a result of this program. To turn our students on, to help them dream of reaching for the unknown, to motivate them to go the extra distance, these are some of the challenges facing teachers in America's schools today. With recent surveys and studies showing that American students are falling behind the rest of the industrialized world in the areas of mathematics and the hard sciences, NASA has taken an increased interest in trying to reach these children. Through various workshops, seminars and on site help sessions, NASA in conjunction with the National Science Teachers Association and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is attempting to get the educators excited about space and to get space theme related curriculum integrated into the daily lesson plans of these teachers. NASA supports two programs which bring the teachers to its centers for two weeks of intensive hands-on learning and training. These two programs, NUMAS, NASA Educational Workshops for Math and Science Teachers and NUEST, NASA Educational Workshops for elementary school teachers, involve about 200 select educators out of the thousands that apply each year. Each NASA center hosts 20 to 24 educators in either NUMAS or NUEST. I'm really kind of proud that we can be part of a program that helps our elementary school teachers do a very difficult job that you all know better than I do that you do. It's awfully important for the nation to do what you're doing. You know, we have an administrator who's the head of NASA who's absolutely committed to using NASA which has kind of a unique charm or unique appeal I think to our younger people, the astronauts and the flying and all that sort of stuff that really does capture them. I know it captures my little boy, it captures them and maybe even co-ops them just a little bit into doing some of the tougher coursework. As the program began, these 22 educators found themselves back in school again, 14 days of intense hands-on learning, lecturing and field trips. Welcome to the Icing Research Tunnel, we'll refer to it as most of the other NASA facilities are in NACMIRT. This time together gave the educators a chance to grow together and develop deep friendships as well as grow intellectually. I think the real intellectual impact will come as we go down the road and we look at some of these materials we use in our classroom when we share them with colleagues and so on like that. The emotional impact is something that can be replicated. So I guess for me the emotional thing of these two weeks is something that I'm really going to, it's really going to stay with me. I really want to piggyback to what Ben has just said is that it's the personal contact that's going to be really something that I'm going to remember. The first day of New West was a time for everybody to get acquainted, get situated and get brought up to speed on what they could expect. Then the work began. With group lectures every morning by John Harzfeld, Aerospace Educational Spatialist, Harzfeld talked on a range of subjects in the fields of aeronautics and aerospace. The history of flight, the solar system, the space shuttle and eating and sleeping in space to name a few. They also had some materials to let the teacher see for themselves what it was like to be an astronaut. Additionally, Harzfeld introduced some simple projects which illustrated aerodynamic concepts that could be used in the classroom using inexpensive supplies. Your host gave talks on motivating students, projects to be used in the classroom, reviewed Comet Halley and Lunar Geology with the teachers. Right, sea of nectar, okay? Sea of nectar and I guarantee you can see every one of these outside. You can introduce them to different projects on how to incorporate everyday things into space science related topics. The newest participants afternoons were filled with tours of various facilities on the Lewis grounds. The Icing Research Tunnel, Propulsion Systems Laboratory. Engines make their thrust by taking air from in front of them and bring low speed and throw it out the back as fast as they can throw it out the back. And they do it by pumping it through there and they do it by heating it. Zero gravity facility and the hangar where the research aircraft used at Lewis are kept. We always tell the people since we fly in an urban area, we give them an Ohio bell card, a master card and send them on their way. There were also group activities where the teachers got hands-on experience with projects for classroom and breakout groups. The energy to the orbiter, the momentum, it's staying down here, it's a smaller bounce. And then children work with the weight, larger, heavier, how much farther is it going to go? And they start doing predictions. And don't forget to tell your students there were no wrong answers in science. Only unexpected results. So watch again just the ball part. Now I'll watch the orbiter so it doesn't, here we go a little bit higher. There were also group activities where the teachers got hands-on experience with projects for classroom and breakout groups. These breakout groups consisted of six to eight teachers working on various projects which were then shared with the rest of the teachers during the last days of the workshop. The groups included comet Halley, electromagnetic spectrum, and shorter wavelength gamma rays and x-rays, which can be extremely harmful. Living on space station freedom. Yes, thanks, Millie. All of our hunting of home numbers and stuff. We first got connected to each other. And Donna Watson with NASA pilot Bill Rickey on her experience in the T-34. This plane is used by NASA Lewis in aerospace projects in conjunction with local high schools and the Office of Educational Programs. One day the group got to tour the Federal Aviation Administration's facilities at the Cleveland Hopkins Airport. They split up into groups and got to go up into the tower. The track hunt or terminal radar approach control and saw a presentation on careers in aeronautics. Another group project the teachers had to do was construct an egg survival system which was then tested, so to speak, at the microgravity drop tower. Needless to say, little refinement afterwards. But the highlight for many of their participants was an interactive video conference with astronaut Story Musgrave and the newest group down at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Musgrave gave a slide presentation on manned spaceflight aboard the shuttle and his philosophies and then took questions from both newest groups. The activity left some deep impressions on the teachers. When Story spent so much time with the little child bent over looking into the sand, he did that on purpose. There was quite a message that it was brought home to me and it kind of pulled everything together that we're doing here. And he said we can spend a lot of time and we're doing a lot of research and we're looking at things from different angles. But do stop and look, look at what we have right here. He brought Earth home so close to me that I will look at everything around me in much a different viewpoint than I had ever done before. As the two-week session came to a close, a banquet was held for the teachers. After dinner, the teachers had to present their space exploration songs. Hi, I'm Kelly. For our kids from now to eternity, EXP, L-O-R-E, S-D-A-T-E, Explor Space. Once was a lady, her name was Flo, for a classroom teacher who said she had to go, so she packed up her things to move to Mars. But little did she know she had to travel through the stars. Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Hercules. On the final day, several of the teachers shared their impressions of the workshop with Fred Povenelli, Director of the Administration and Computer Services Directorate. The benefits of the newest program are incredible. They will multiply, and it is like a ripple effect. Taking the 22 teachers that have experienced something here at Lewis, we will go on and spread that throughout the country. The difference, I think, between passing out information to teachers at a convention, meeting people at a symposium or at a conference and passing out information to 20,000 educators, the chances of it really getting into the classroom are very slim. And then you can take 22 teachers, bring them to a NASA center, let them meet the people, and all of a sudden, the information that NASA wants to give us becomes a part of us and we now have a new ownership in it. And when someone has an ownership in something, you take that very personally and you will make sure that it is taken care of and it is given out to others. What I have discovered in the two weeks that I've been here at Lewis is that the people of the Lewis Research Center are NASA's greatest resource. They are tremendous. These are professional people who treated us as professionals. They opened their doors, they opened their minds, they would listen to us, they answered our questions. It was exciting for us to see the pride that they had in their work. There was one gentleman at the Zero Gravity Facility who really took pride in what he was doing and he gave us that sense of pride that we can take back to our classrooms. I think probably this is singularly the most important activity in which I could have participated this summer. It was not only an exciting and productive experience to visit the laboratories, to meet with the people, to have an opportunity to ask questions of them. I was particularly impressed with their dedication to what they were doing and their enthusiasm for it. But I also gained much from the outstanding elementary school teachers that were involved in this two week newest workshop. These are really incredible people. They not only talk shop during the time that they were at the Lewis facility, they talk shop 16 hours a day. And that may be a conservative estimate because that was only during the times that I saw them. Following their visit to Lewis Research Center, the newest teachers are supported and followed up on through the year by Anita Solars, NASA's newest coordinator at Lewis Research Center. If you are interested in learning more about the newest or new mass programs, please write National Science Teachers Association, Space Science and Technology Programs, 5110 Roanoke Place, Suite 101, College Park, Maryland, 20740. A project that is currently aimed at high school students is the Lewis Research Center's T-34 program. This program involves NASA pilots and researchers, as well as several area Cleveland teachers and students. The plane is an old T-34 Navy trainer that was retrieved from a storage facility in Arizona and restored to its present condition by the Lewis Research Center's Aircraft Maintenance Division. The plane has gotten a new lease on life through its use in a cooperative program between local schools and NASA. The students of Brother David Martin at St. Edward High School in Cleveland are using the T-34 to measure the environmental impact that the waters of Lake Erie have had on some park beaches and various studies at two wastewater treatment plants. Comply High School near Akron, Ohio had their students working on several projects, including aerial imaging and the reclamation of land. The T-34 project is designed to excite students about scientific research. To get involved in the project, the students had to design a program of study, submit an abstract detailing what their study was expected to accomplish, determine the equipment they needed, and after the data was gathered, prepare a report on their findings. And they had nothing to begin with, no cookbook recipe, no guidance, no hints, they had to design it for themselves. I want them to take the film, see what they can do with it, maybe it will answer the question they raised, maybe it won't. But that's the beauty of science and in that sense it'll be a real learning experience. It's not something that was given to them. They can see now that they could put something together which is actually their own. In a sense they are creating something new for each and every one of these experiments we did. Some of the projects at St. Edward's may benefit the local community sometime in the future. Working on the west side of Cleveland, some students are attempting to determine erosion rates at Edgewater State Park. I think you're slowly shallowing up because it's not draining, the sediment's not draining, and the water just hits the beach and it just takes all the sediment with it. So it's rapidly deteriorating and there's nothing to stop the erosion. There's no plants or grass. With this picture and several others, we can establish the fact that erosion does occur at Edgewater Park and it occurs rather rapidly and using plants and bushes we can stop the erosion. Another group of students is working on the east side of Cleveland at the Easterly wastewater treatment plant. They are trying to determine the effects of the effluent plume from the plant on the surrounding waters of Lake Erie. By taking various measurements on the ground, then comparing these with the photographs taken both with regular color film and infrared film, they hope to see how the effluent warms the waters near the site and if the chemistry of the water is affected. At Copley High School in Akron, Ohio, the studies focused on aerial imaging. What was the minimum size an object could be before it couldn't be resolved along with optical illusions and shadows and heights? We set one up this time that deals with optical illusions. Another one dealing with shadows for measuring heights and distances apart from tires and we did some with the speed of the plane and velocity of the wind. So they're set up to try to take a look at can you determine things from looking at aerial photographs on the ground site testing it. With the NASA project, we could really work together and it's much more on the spot. You can, from textbooks, you can just read about it, but from going outside and actually being in the pictures, analyzing the pictures, you can just learn so much more. In the future, it is hoped that other Cleveland area schools will get involved in the T-34 project. One goal of the project is to involve more students in schools in a wider area someday. But for now, some of the Cleveland area's young students are getting a head start on tomorrow's problems today. In the time that we have left, let's watch a short piece from NASA headquarters on the Space Exploration Initiative. History proves that we have never lost by pressing the limits of our frontiers. Last July, President Bush set new goals for America's space program when he announced the National Space Exploration Initiative. First for the coming decade for the 1990s, space station freedom, critical next step in all our space endeavors, and next for the new century, back to the moon, back to the future, and this time back to stay. And then a journey into tomorrow, a journey to another planet, a manned mission to Mars. Inspired by the President's declaration, research into ways of permanently returning to the moon and exploring Mars as accelerating throughout government industry and academia. Inflatable modules protected by lunar soil and linked together to form an expandable base are under study. To explore Mars, engineers are looking into a number of robotic rovers that could serve as pathfinders for manned missions. In this scenario, a Mars spaceship is assembled in orbit using a robot arm. The ship's three launch vehicles haul up its major components. Once the ship is complete, a shuttle brings in the flight crew, and the journey begins. Upon reaching the planet, a crew carrying lander separates from the mother ship. Guided by information from an earlier rover mission, it is steered to a pre-planned touchdown spot, providing a base for Mars operations. To ensure that no approach to building a lunar base and exploring Mars is overlooked, NASA Administrator Richard Truley recently launched a nationwide outreach program, seeking new and innovative ideas. The program includes more than 3,200 letters from Truley to universities and professional societies, an announcement to industry in commerce business daily, a review of federally sponsored research, and a study by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. NASA has even established this toll-free telephone number for anyone who would like to submit an idea. The outreach effort offers this country's best and brightest a chance to help shape the future of man in space, station freedom, a lunar base, and journey to Mars. A comprehensive plan to extend human presence in space. Well, that's all for this edition of NASA Report to Education. I hope that you enjoyed the show and will join us next time. Until then, this is Lynn Bonderance saying goodbye from the Teacher Resource Center at the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.