Bring NASA lessons to learners with free professional development

As we posted in November, Battelle won a grant with NASA to help connect educators to four mini-design challenges for students in grades 3-12. Each is aligned to Next Generation Science Standards. We have selected teachers of 3,000 students across the country to receive STEM crates to help implement those challenges in their classrooms.  Teachers and informal program providers who did not receive STEM crates are still invited to attend our professional development sessions. With these sessions, we’ll provide the guidance for you to bring these challenges to students.

Beginning February 1^st, https://nextgenstem.battelle.org will feature standards-aligned design challenges designed for K-12 by NASA professionals. Each week will focus on a different piece of NASA’s mission – STEM on Station, Moon to Mars, Commercial Crew, and Aeronaut-X. We’ll provide accessible resources to you and your students. Whether you’re teaching in-person or online, we’ll make it easy to guide your them through. Students will experience the engineering design process, participate in hands-on-STEM activities, and learn about NASA careers from the professionals themselves.

Each day of the week is themed after a step in the design cycle, starting with #NASAMakerMonday and #NASATestItTuesday, and culminating in #NASAFeedbackFriday. Students will complete a prototype on Monday, iterate on their design, learn about careers at NASA from NASA’s own STEM Stars, then submit their designs.

To help you plan and coordinate with other participants, we’ve laid out the complete timeline for each activity individually. For example, STEM on Station: Rocket Races and Newton’s 3rd Law will begin with a #NASAMakerMonday activity on February 1st.  Final student designs can be submitted until February 14th.

Professional development sessions for each challenge will be offered throughout January and February. These sessions are free and open to anyone interested in participating.

Schedule:

• Educator session: January 13, 2021, 3 – 4:30 PM – STEM on Station: Rocket Races and Newton’s 3rd Law
  • Best for Grades 5-8
  • Design Challenge for students: February 1-14, 2021
• Educator session: January 18, 2021, 3 – 4:30 PM – Propulsion with Foam Rockets
  • Best for Grades 9 – 10
  • Design Challenge for students: February 15-28, 2021
• Educator session: January 27, 2021, 3 – 4:30 PM – Eggstronaut Parachute Challenge
  • Best for Grades 3-5
  • Design Challenge for students: March 1-14, 2021
• Educator session: February 1, 2021, 3 – 4:30 PM – Paper Plane Aeronautics
  • Best for Grades 5-8
  • Design Challenge for students: March 15-28, 2021

Register here to attend any one of these sessions.

Interested in purchasing supplies for any of these challenges? We have prepared a shopping list for each challenge to expedite the process. Lists are located on separate tabs of the spreadsheet.

Interested in connecting with other teachers? Join our Slack channel to learn from each other!

Also, check out our Space from a Distance page for the schedule, resources and other information to help you implement these activities with your students!