The National Space Centre's Space Academy team has been invited to take centre-stage at the world's largest space education conference at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The National Space Centre's Space Academy team has been invited to take centre-stage at the world's largest space education conference at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
In addition, the National Space Centre has been invited to forge a long-term partnership with NASA's longest running education programme.
The collaboration between the Space Academy project and NASA's Aerospace Educator Services Project (AESP) is the first US-UK space education partnership of its kind and is firm testament to the quality of scientists, teachers and other personnel involved in the Space Academy project; one which it is hoped will soon expand to benefit students and teachers throughout the UK and the United States.
Anu Ojha, the Space Academy Project Director, said; "The Space Academy programme has exceeded all its targets in its first year, has benefited thousands of students and hundreds of teachers and has now been asked to collaborate with NASA. We are delighted that education programmes of the world's largest space agency are keen to work with us in developing new ways of using space to inspire the next generation of scientists."
The team's successful presentations in Houston last year, which gained the highest evaluation scores of any of the conference sessions, have meant that the Space Academy team has been invited to lead two of the largest sessions at the annual Space Exploration Educators Conference (SEEC) which draws in more than 600 teachers, space scientists and engineers from all over the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan.
Andrew Morgan, Skills & Communities Director at East Midlands Development Agency (emda), said "The collaboration between the Space Academy and NASA is fantastic for the region and I'm sure many science and engineering students and teachers will benefit greatly in the future."
The Space Academy team's presentations on the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission to Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, are being recorded for use by the British National Space Centre, the Government department at the heart of UK space policy, and have also been selected by Space Center Houston to be streamed live on the Internet.
National Space Centre Education Director Anu Ojha, Space Academy Project Manager Dr Sarah Hill, Project Scientist Dr Catherine Muller from the University of Leicester and science teacher Ruth Williamson from the Priory Academy LSST in Lincoln have all been invited to present at the conference.
Plans are also being drawn up for follow-on training sessions led by other Space Academy scientists and teachers at various NASA centers during 2010.
http://www.emda.org.uk/news/newsreturn.asp?fileno=3858