RESA's NASA Space Science Strand: Life on Other Planets

RESA's "NASA Space Science Strand" has been an event stretching over multiple activities.

NASA Materials Teacher Inservice

A Nasa Materials Teacher Inservice was conducted on September 30, 1998. This inservice highlighted the curricular materials available from the Nasa Lewis Center in Cleveland and how they aligned with the state science curriculum framework. Some thirty teachers from around Wayne County attended this first inservice and were introduced to the ideas that were going to be explored in the upcoming Double Teleconference.

Teleconference 1: Life on Other Planets: An Inquiry Model

The first Teleconference, October 29, 1998, entitled "Life on Other Planets: An Inquiry Model", introduced 90 students from two schools in RESA's Electronic Classroom interactorium and students in sixty classrooms throughout Wayne County (approximately ?1200 students [very conservative]) to a process of inquiry that starts with common knowledge and moves to questions and hypotheses. Expert witness from an astronomer and a Nasa consultant was facilitated by videoconferencing hookup (PictureTel), a biologist from Belle Isle Aquarium attended and served as an expert; and the RESA-designed XLife Website and Xlife Webquest served as backdrop for the expert testimony and question-answering by the "Ambassador to Jupiter".

Ambassador to Jupiter is a program from Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Galileo Mission which designates two educators in each state as official representatives of the Mission to the public in their areas. RESA employee Greg Turner is an Ambassador and has authored the Xlife Website out of media materials provided by Nasa through the informational Ambassador packages (video tapes, slides etc) and from materials on Nasa servers on the internet.

Webquest is a concept that was developed by a San Diego State University professor and it gives a specification for how to package the inquiry for information on the Internet in order to make it easier for upper elementary and middle school students to undertake internet-based inquiry. The XLife Webquest is set on Space Station Beta, orbiting Earth in 2015. The goal is to design a mission to a planet or moon to search for life there.

Research Period

The first Teleconference was intended to initiate what would be a effort at the local schools that had participated in the Teleconference (via cable broadcast, chat and email, and phone-in) to execute some student projects. Possibilities ranged from written reports to poster board presentations, to 3D models to hyperstudio-type computer presentations. The Webquest could be used as a guide for the projects since it specified the make up of the student teams (e.g. Planetologist, Biologist, Engineer) and gave each a research agenda with specific questions that could be researched under the topic. Science teachers from the participating classes would facilitate these projects and arrange with other school staff and teachers (Librarian, Media Specialist, Computer Lab Teacher) to facilitate projects. At least two hundred students participated in these Webquest-based projects and selected projects have now been filmed for documentary purposes and for use in the second teleconference.

Teleconference 2: Life on Other Planets: Multiple Models of Student Research

The second Teleconference, November 17, 1998, entitled "Life on Other Planets: Multiple Models of Student Research" brings student projects that resulted from this process to the viewership. Webquest-based projects have been filmed for taped replay and two student groups will be attending at the interactorium and they will present their projects live. A biologist from Detroit Zoo will have a presentation (via PictureTel) about research done on extreme environments in the Arctic and in Alaska (viewed as a "test site" for life on other planets) and the Ambassador to Jupiter will present material from the Xlife Website in the context of "doing research on the internet".