 In the following 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 where we've lost them. The teachers here that participated in the newest program are special. They've been in the program that less than 100 teachers have had at Lewis, and I should clarify that by saying elementary science teachers have had at Lewis. Newest program has only been in existence for three years, and so this is a very small select group within the United States. It was developed to disseminate knowledge in aerospace education down into the lower grades where we need to turn the kid on. 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 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, or it's unlikely that they're going to pick it up later. 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-themed 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, NewMass, NASA Educational Workshops for Math, Science, and Technology Teachers, and New West, 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 NewMass or New West. NewMass works with secondary science and math teachers, while New West concentrates getting elementary school teachers motivated and excited about teaching their students math and science and incorporating the aspects of the space program into their lessons. During the summer of 1990, the Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio played hosts to 22 educators in the New West program. I'm really kind of proud that we can be part of a program that helps our elementary school teachers do the very difficult job that you all know better, are 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 that they would otherwise opt not to do. Pay attention to the math and science. I agree with our administrator that, you know, it's really a unique opportunity for this, for NASA as a national arm, civil space program, civil science program to use all the leverage that we can bring, the unique things that we can bring to make that sort of thing happen. In any way, we can help you all who really are on the front line of making that happen. And that's something that we really want to do to be partners with you. As the program began, these 22 educators found themselves back in school again, 14 days of intense hands-on learning, lecturing and field trips. This time together gave the educators a chance to grow together and to develop deep friendships as well as grow intellectually. The emotional impact is something that can't 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 for that, that's been the impact of these weeks. Not the superficial kind of emotional impact, but in the same way as what everybody else has expressed it, for me, the intellectual impact of what they're going to see down the road. I really want to piggyback to what Ben has just said, because that's the personal impact that's going to be really something that I'm going to remember. And I really thank you for all the wonderful materials that I will definitely be able to dispense to at least 125 teachers. You should be hearing from Colomso. The first day of NUES was a time for everybody to get acquainted, get situated and get brought up to speed on what they could expect. In a talk by Pam Bacon from NASA Headquarters Educational Programs Office, the teachers were told what NASA hoped to gain in return. Caroline Benson of NSTA, Space Science and Technology Division, gave a presentation about NSTA and other programs the organization has to offer teachers. Then the work began. With group lectures every morning by John Hartzfield, Aerospace Educational Spatialist, Hartzfield 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. He also had some materials to let the teachers see for themselves what it was like to be an astronaut. Additionally, Hartzfield introduced some simple projects which illustrated aerodynamic concepts that could be used in the classroom using inexpensive supplies. Your hosts gave talks on motivating students, projects to be used in the classroom, reviewed Comet Halley and Lunar Geology with the teachers. See them next year and I guarantee you can see every one of these outside. And introduce them to different projects on how to incorporate everyday things into space science-related topics. So take 344,000, 14,000. So if you'll divide your 344,000 by 16, that'll tell you how much your loathe weighs. 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 at very low speed and throwing 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. The Zero Gravity Facility and the Hanger where the research aircraft used at Lewis are kept. 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 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 are 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. The 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 worked with a leader, your host, John Hartsfield and Richard Kuneth, a NASA physicist. The groups included electromagnetic spectrum, Reflection, Comet Halley, Living on Space Station Freedom, 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 on or terminal radar approach control and saw a presentation on careers and 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, some of them needed a little refinement afterwards. But the highlight for many of the 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. Then plaques and certificates of participation were handed out and the evening closed with an emotional group signing of the song The Wind Beneath My Wings. On the final day, several of the teachers shared their impressions of the workshop with Fred Povinelli, 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 have 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. So I gained many ideas on teaching, science and math, elementary school age children. I gained much from my colleagues in the workshop. I gained much from the leaders of the workshop. Not only what they were willing to share with us, but the modeling they did in terms of their enthusiasm for the whole space program. 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. The participants are mailed updates and follow-up materials that are called twice a month in an effort to see how their new curriculum is working. 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, 207-4-0.