Education News & Blogs – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Find out how the upcoming NISAR mission, an Earth satellite designed to capture detailed views of our planet's changing surface, will provide new insights into everything from natural disasters to climate change. Plus, connect it all to STEM learning.

The next addition to NASA’s fleet of Earth Science orbiters is launching in 2024 and will represent a monumental leap forward in how we monitor our changing planet. The NISAR mission is a collaboration between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation that’s designed to monitor and study tiny movements of Earth’s surface from events like natural disasters and climate change.

Read on to find out how NISAR is pushing the boundaries of Earth science from space. Plus, learn how you can bring science and engineering from the mission to your students.

How NISAR Works

NISAR is among the most advanced radar systems on an Earth science mission to date due to its supersized antenna reflector, use of synthetic aperture radar, and ability to observe Earth in two different radar frequencies simultaneously.

Hear mission experts describe how the NISAR satellite will track our changing Earth in fine detail. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Extending above the spacecraft like a giant catcher's mitt, NISAR’s antenna reflector is 39 feet (12 meters) wide – the largest ever launched as part of a NASA Earth-observing mission. This antenna creates an observational window, or swath, of the surface beneath the spacecraft that is 150 miles (242 kilometers) wide. The swath size is determined by the radar wavelength and antenna size, which is important because there is a direct relationship between antenna size and the resolution of images and data that can be captured by NISAR.

The NISAR spacecraft flies over Earth's glowing blue horizon. A long boom extending above the spacecraft holds up a cylindrical structure with the antenna reflector stretched across its center.

NISAR's antenna reflector extends above the spacecraft like a catcher's mitt and is engineered to help the mission get an unprecedented view of Earth's surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image

We typically want the best resolution possible, but we’re limited by the size of the antenna we can build and deploy in space. Conventionally, the resolution on a satellite is a function of the wavelength it uses and the size of the antenna. The larger the wavelength, the bigger the antenna needs to be to get quality images. At typical radar wavelengths, with a 12 meter diameter reflector, the best achievable resolution would be as coarse as 10s of kilometers, which is not very useful for observing features on Earth at the human scale.

An angle extends down from a rectangle labeled radar antenna. A series of stacked ellipses representing radar pulses is at the widest part of the angle along a path labeled radar swath.

This diagram shows how synthetic aperature radar works by sending multiple radar pulses to an area on the ground from an antenna passing overhead. Credit: NASA | + Expand image

This is why NISAR utilizes an approach called synthetic aperture radar, or SAR, to synthetically magnify the resolution achievable from the antenna. With SAR, the spacecraft sends multiple signals, or pulses, to an area as it flies overhead. Each signal gets reflected back to the spacecraft, which is meticulously designed to “catch” the reflected signals thanks to its position and velocity. Each signal in the sequence is then focused into a single high-resolution image, creating an effect as if the spacecraft is using a much larger antenna.

Radar uses radio wavelengths, which are longer than those of visible light, allowing us to see through clouds and sometimes even tree coverage to the ground below, depending on the frequency of the radio waves. We’re also able to interpret a lot of information about the surface from the way the signal returns back to the orbiter. This is because NISAR will measure the amount of scatter, or dispersion, of the signal as compared to when it was originally transmitted.

For example, a rigid, sharp angled building will bounce the signal back to the receiver differently than a leafy tree. Different radio frequencies are better used for different surfaces because they are influenced by the type of surface being analyzed. To this end, NISAR is the first mission to use two different radar frequencies simultaneously. The L-Band can be used to monitor heavier vegetation and landscapes while the S-Band is better tuned for lighter vegetation and crop growth. The two wavelengths in general extend the range of sensitivity of the measurement to smaller and larger changes.

This combination of tools and features will allow NISAR to construct global maps of changes in the position of any given pixel at a scale of just centimeters as well as subtle changes in reflectivity due to land cover changes on all land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days. The resolution combined with repetition will allow scientists to monitor the changes taking place on our planet in a matter of days more comprehensively than ever before.

Specks of brightly covered squares dot an overhead image of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. A key indicates how the colors correspond with the vertical velocity in mm/yr.

This satellite image of New Orleans is overlaid with synthetic aperature radar data from the UAVSAR instrument to show the rate at which the land was sinking in a section of New Orleans from June 2009 to July 2012. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Esri | › Learn more

What the NISAR Mission Will Show Us

Because of the massive amount of data produced by NISAR, we’ll be able to closely monitor the impacts of environmental events including earthquakes, landslides, and ice-sheet collapses. Data from NISAR could even be used to assess the risk of natural hazards.

Scientists can use NISAR to monitor tiny movements in Earth’s surface in areas prone to volcanic eruptions or landslides. These measurements are constructed using what’s called an interferogram, which looks at how the maps generated for each pass of the spacecraft have changed over time. For example, we could see immediate changes to the topography after an earthquake with an interferogram made from images NISAR collected shortly before and soon after the event.

On the left, a satellite takes a radar image of an area of Earth's surface during its first pass. On the right, during pass two, the satellite takes a radar image of the same area of the surface, which has now been displaced by an earthquake.

Using interferometry, as shown in this diagram, NISAR can capture changes or deformation in land surfaces, such as after an earthquake. | + Expand image

By tracking and recording these events and other movements on the surface leading up to natural disasters, it may be possible to identify warning signs that can improve detection and disaster response.

Two thin rectangular satellite images labeled Nov 13, 2009 and Nov 18, 2010 are followed by an equal sign and a third image of the same area with a neon colors overlaid and a heat-map scale showing movement in cm.

The first two images in this series were captured by the UAVSAR instrument during two separate passes over California's San Andreas Fault about a year apart. The two images were then combined to create the third image, which an interferogram that shows how the surface changed between the two passes of the instrument. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image

And NISAR isn’t just limited to studying the solid Earth. As missions prior have done, it will also be able to generate maps of polar ice sheets over time and detect changes in permafrost based on the regional movement of the soil below. These measurements will give climate scientists a clear picture of how much the ice is moving and deforming due to climate change and where it is thawing as the ground warms.

Additionally, NISAR can track land usage, deforestation, sea levels, and crustal deformation, informing scientists about the impacts of environmental and climate change on Earth.

Follow Along With NISAR

NISAR is scheduled to launch in 2024 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, and will enter a polar orbit 460 miles (747 kilometers) above Earth. For the first 90 days after launch, the spacecraft will undergo checks and commissioning before beginning scientific observations for a primary mission designed to last three years.

Science from the mission will be downlinked to both NASA and ISRO ground stations below with data and the tools to process it freely available for download and use to all professional and citizen scientists.

Visit NASA’s NISAR mission page for the latest updates about the mission.

Teach Earth Science With NISAR

With the launch of NISAR, we will be better able to monitor and mitigate natural disasters and understand the effects of climate change. Bring the fleet of NASA Earth Science missions to your classroom with the following lessons and activities:

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Student Projects and Activities

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Teachable Moments in Climate Change

Explore this collection of Teachable Moments articles to get a primer on the latest NASA Earth science missions, plus find related education resources you can deploy right away!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brandon Rodriguez, Educator Professional Development Specialist, NASA-JPL Education Office

Brandon Rodriguez is the educator professional development specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Outside of promoting STEM education, he enjoys reading philosophy, travel and speaking to your dog like it's a person.

Learn about a new mission seeking to understand some of the greatest mysteries of our universe, and explore hands-on teaching resources that bring it all down to Earth.

Scientists may soon uncover new insights about some of the most mysterious phenomena in our universe with the help of the newly launched Euclid mission. Built and managed by the European Space Agency, Euclid will use a suite of instruments developed, in part, by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to explore the curious nature of dark energy and dark matter along with their role in the expansion and acceleration of our universe.

Read on to learn how the Euclid mission will probe these cosmological mysteries. Then, find out how to use demonstrations and models to help learners grasp these big ideas.

Why It’s Important

No greater question in our universe promotes wonder in scientists and non-scientists alike than that of the origin of our universe. The Euclid mission will allow scientists to study the nearly imperceptible cosmic components that may hold exciting answers to this question.

Edwin Hubble's observations of the expanding universe in the 1920s marked the beginnings of what's now known as the big-bang theory. We've since made monumental strides in determining when and how the big bang would have taken place by looking at what's known as cosmic background radiation using instruments such as COBE and WMAP in 1989 and 2001, respectively. However, there's one piece of Hubble's discovery that still has scientists stumped: our universe is not only expanding, but as scientists discovered in 1998, that expansion is also accelerating.

This side by side comparison shows a constant rate of expansion of the universe, represented by the expanding sphere on the left, and an accelerating rate of expansion of the universe, represented by the expanding sphere on the right. Each dot on the spheres represents a galaxy and shows how galaxies move apart from each other faster in the universe that has an accelerating rate of expansion. | Watch on YouTube

How can this be? It makes intuitive sense that, regardless of the immense force of the big bang that launched all matter across the known universe 13.8 billion years ago, that matter would eventually come to a rest and possibly even start to collapse. Instead, it's as if we've dropped a glass onto the ground and discovered that the shards are flying away from us faster and faster into perpetuity.

A sideways funnel that fans out at one end encapsulates an illustration of the history of the universe starting with the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago through the first stars, the development of galaxies, and accelerated expansion.

An illustrated timeline of the universe. Credit: WMAP | + Expand image

Scientists believe that answers may lie in two yet-to-be-understood factors of our universe: dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter is unlike the known matter we experience here on Earth, such as what's found on the periodic table. We can't actually see dark matter; we can only infer its presence. It has mass and therefore gravity, making it an attractive force capable of pulling things together. Amazingly, dark matter makes up roughly 27% of the known universe compared with the much more modest 5% of "normal matter" that we experience day to day. However, dark matter is extremely dilute throughout the universe with concentrations of 105 particles per cubic meter.

This animated pie chart shows rounded values for the three known components of the universe: visible matter (5%), dark matter (27%), and dark energy (68%). Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center | › Full video and caption

In opposition to the attractive force of dark matter, we have dark energy. Dark energy is a repulsive force and makes up roughly 68% of energy in the known universe. Scientists believe that the existence of dark energy and the amount of repulsion it displays compared with dark matter is what's causing our universe to not only expand, but also to expand faster and faster.

Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, a senior project scientist with the Hubble Space Telescope mission, explains how the mission has been helping scientists learn more about dark energy. Credit: NASA Goddard | Watch on YouTube

But to truly understand this mysterious force and how it interacts with both dark matter and normal matter, scientists will have to map barely detectable distortions of light traversing the universe, carefully measuring how that light changes over time and distance in every direction. As JPL Astrophysicist Jason Rhodes explains, “Dark energy has such a subtle effect that we need to survey billions of galaxies to adequately map it.”

And that's where Euclid comes in.

How It Works

The European Space Agency and NASA each contributed to the development of the Euclid mission, which launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on July 1. The spacecraft consists of a 1.2-meter (48-inch) space telescope and two science instruments: an optical camera and a near-infrared camera that also serves as a spectrometer. These instruments will provide a treasure trove of data for scientists of numerous disciplines, ranging from exoplanet hunters to cosmologists.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/images/redshift_demo.gif

Light waves get stretched as the universe expands similar to how this ink mark stretches out as the elastic is pulled. Get students modeling and exploring this effect with this standards-aligned math lesson. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image

This infographic is divided into three sectionss. The first describes how wavelengths increase over time, shifting from blue to yellow to red as objects in space get older and farther away. The second shows how light stretched by the expansion of space becomes redder and enters the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. The third shows how telescopes like Roman use infrared detectors to see this ancient light and learn about the early universe.

This graphic illustrates how cosmological redshift works and how it offers information about the universe’s evolution. Credit: NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScI) | › Full image and caption

As Gisella de Rosa at the Space Telescope Science Institute explains, “The ancillary science topics we will be able to study with Euclid range from the evolution of the objects we see in the sky today to detecting populations of galaxies and creating catalogs for astronomers. The data will serve the entire space community.”

The cameras aboard Euclid will operate at 530-920 nanometers (optical light) and at 920-2020 nanometers (near infrared) with each boasting more than 576 million and 65 million pixels, respectively. These cameras are capable of measuring the subtle changes to the light collected from celestial objects and can determine the distances to billions of galaxies across a survey of 15,000 square degrees – one-third of the entire sky.

Meanwhile, Euclid's spectrometer will collect even more detailed measurements of the distance to tens of millions of galaxies by looking at redshift. Redshift describes how wavelengths of light change ever so slightly as objects move away from us. It is a critical phenomenon for measuring the speed at which our universe is expanding. Similar to the way sound waves change as a result of the Doppler effect, wavelengths of light are compressed to shorter wavelengths (bluer) as something approaches you and extended to longer wavelengths (redder) as it moves away from you. As determined by a Nobel Prize winning team of astronomers, our universe isn’t just red-shifting over time, distant objects are becoming redder faster.

Euclid will measure these incredibly minuscule changes in wavelength for objects near and far, providing an accurate measurement of how the light has changed as a factor of time and distance and giving us a rate of acceleration of the universe. Furthermore, Euclid will be able to map the relative densities of dark matter and normal matter as they interact with dark energy, creating unevenly distributed pockets of more attractive forces. This will allow scientists to identify minute differences in where the universe is expanding by looking at the way that light is altered or "lensed."

The multi-dimensional maps created by Euclid – which will include depth and time in addition to the height and width of the sky – will inform a complementary mission already in development by NASA, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Launching in 2026, this space telescope will look back in time with even greater detail, targeting areas of interest provided by Euclid. The telescope will use instruments with higher sensitivity and spatial resolution to peer deeper into redshifted and faint galaxies, building on the work of Euclid to look farther into the accelerating universe. As Caltech’s Gordon Squires describes it: “We’re trying to understand 90% of our entire universe. Both of these telescopes will provide essential data that will help us start to uncover these colossal mysteries.”

Teach It

The abstract concepts of the scope and origin of our universe and the unimaginable scale of cosmology can be difficult to communicate to learners. However, simple models and simulations can help make these topics more tangible. See below to find out how, plus explore more resources about our expanding universe.

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NASA's Universe of Learning materials are based upon work supported by NASA under award number NNX16AC65A to the Space Telescope Science Institute, working in partnership with Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

TAGS: K-12 Education, Teaching, Teachers, Educators, Resources, Universe, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Euclid, Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, Universe of Learning

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brandon Rodriguez, Educator Professional Development Specialist, NASA-JPL Education Office

Brandon Rodriguez is the educator professional development specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Outside of promoting STEM education, he enjoys reading philosophy, travel and speaking to your dog like it's a person.

Four pre-service teachers at Cal Poly Pomona are developing their skills in lesson design and delivery as they study Earth science concepts and prepare for graduation.

Four woman face the camera, arranged two by two, in a geology classroom. Two rocks sit on a table in front of them.

Clockwise from upper left: Amie Gallardo, Sofia Vallejo, Afiya Kindle, Jacquelin Galvez-Coyt. Image courtesy: Brandon Rodriguez | + Expand image

During the fall semester of 2022, I had the privilege of working with the Education Department at California Polytechnic University in Pomona, specifically with pre-service teachers taking coursework in Earth science. During our collaboration, the curriculum had the students split time in class between learning about geology and Earth’s history and then designing and engaging in classroom activities related to the technical content that they could take to their own classes in the future. This combination had Cal Poly students learning science and education hand-in-hand each week and led to some amazing classroom lessons and lab activities.

One group of young women in the program stood out as exceptionally passionate about their future careers. This team consisted of four seniors: Jacquelin Galvez-Coyt, hoping to someday teach kindergarten; Amie Gallardo, who is planning to teach fourth grade; Afiya Kindle, who is interested in teaching elementary or middle school; and Sofia Vallejo, who is interested in kindergarten through sixth grade.

Despite their interest in working with young students and collaborating to design lessons for those students, each of these pre-service teachers allowed their individuality to shape how they navigated lesson design and implementation. I recently sat down with them to ask about their instructional style and aspirations for classrooms of their own.

Now that we’re back to in-person classes, how is the transition going?

Sofia: Returning from remote instruction felt eerie at first, but it’s so nice to return to communicate with people and build connections in a non-digital way. In-person classes prepare you to communicate with colleagues in real life, build social skills, and read body language. All of these skills are critical for a teacher in order to understand and better help students to succeed.

Amie: Returning from remote instruction has been amazing. While it had its perks, I believe, as students, we learn a lot more while working hands-on with our projects than is possible in distance learning. If we’re trying to develop and assess activities we can do with kids, that really requires being face-to-face.

A woman stands in front of a classroom. She is wearing a flannel jacket and rubber gloves while holding a rock. A person in the class faces her and has her hand up.

Amie Gallardo provides an Earth science demonstration to a class of education students at Cal Poly Pomona. Image courtesy: Brandon Rodriguez | + Expand image

What are you most excited about when it comes to having your own classroom, and how will you get your kids excited about STEM?

Afiya: I am most confident about creating a genuine safe space for kids. I’ll be able to communicate how much I care about them and about our shared future, and I think there could never be enough genuinely kind and caring teachers in this world.

Jacquelin: I think my kids will be excited about STEM because of how easy it's become to incorporate activities. There are many resources out there for teachers to use for teaching math and science that don't rely solely on a textbook. Activities that use inexpensive materials or that require a little DIY skills go a long way for students.

Afiya: Exactly! I know I developed my love for science from being hands-on and actually somewhat “in charge” of an experiment on my own. Winning a science fair competition in seventh grade for a greenhouse I built really boosted my confidence and helped reassure me of my scholastic abilities as a kid.

You led a really cool lesson with your classmates where you had them use Oreos to model tectonic boundaries. How do you feel that lesson went?

Jacqueline: I was really proud of our group. After giving a lecture to the students about tectonic plate boundaries, we dispersed Oreos to everyone. We were set up around the classroom demonstrating the activity and giving verbal instructions for everyone to follow. My favorite part was when I saw two students by me go, “Oohhhh,” and smile once they got their Oreos to demonstrate the plate boundaries correctly.

Amie: I thought it went really well! All the students in our classroom enjoyed it. Although we, as adults, may know about plate tectonics, having our hands on the Oreos to understand it made it more enjoyable.

Afiya: Plus, who doesn’t love Oreos? They’re even vegan!

Two hands wearing rubber gloves hold the top portion of an Oreo cookie. The image is animated to show the cookie top is broken in half and represents the sliding of tectonic plates

An Oreo cookie is used to demonstrate rock fault movement. Image courtesy: Brandon Rodriguez | + Expand image

Which of the NASA-JPL lessons that you’ve implemented did you enjoy, and why?

Jacqueline: My favorite JPL activity we did was the Moon Phases activity. Having one team member to the side to give the instructions allows another student to view the different Moon phases. Then you switch so both students get to see that perspective. My second favorite activity was creating layers with different colored Play-Doh and demonstrating them as different plate boundaries and folds.

Amie: The NASA lesson that I enjoyed the most was the one we did on lunar eclipses. Much like myself, many students often have an early fascination with the Moon. Learning more about the Moon and lunar eclipses made me excited about the semester.

A woman wearing a mask and glasses on the right hand side looks to the left while holding a foam ball on a stick representing the moon. A light source on the left representing the Sun shines, casting a shadow on the woman's face.

Sofia Vallejo uses a foam ball and lamp to demonstrate how solar eclipses occur. Image courtesy: Brandon Rodriguez | + Expand image

What’s next for you after you finish at Cal Poly Pomona?

Jacqueline: After I graduate at Cal Poly, I plan to attend UC Riverside to complete my credential program. While I am there, I would love to get my student teaching experience. Once I complete my credential program, I plan to apply to work at schools in the Inland Empire [in Southern California]. I want to be able to give back to the communities that influenced who I am today.

Sofia: My plans after Cal Poly are to take some time off to gain experience in the field as a substitute teacher. I also am looking to gain more volunteer experience, skills, and exposure. In the future, I want to enroll in UC Riverside to earn my teaching credential and master's degree.

Looking for ways to bring NASA STEM into your classroom or already have a great idea? The Education Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory serves educators in the greater Los Angeles area. Contact us at education@jpl.nasa.gov.

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Moon Phases

Students learn about the phases of the moon by acting them out.

Grades 1-6

Time 30-60 minutes

When Do Lunar Eclipses Happen?

Students use a paper plate to make a model that explains why lunar eclipses don’t occur during every full moon.

Grades 4-8

Time 30-60 minutes

Modeling Crustal Folds

Students use playdough to model how Earth’s crust is bent and folded by tectonic plates over geologic time.

Grades 6-12

Time 30-60 minutes

TAGS: Teachers, School, Remote School, Classroom, Instruction, K-12, STEAM, Science, Math, resources, lessons

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brandon Rodriguez, Educator Professional Development Specialist, NASA-JPL Education Office

Brandon Rodriguez is the educator professional development specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Outside of promoting STEM education, he enjoys reading philosophy, travel and speaking to your dog like it's a person.

A NASA space telescope mission is giving astronomers a whole new way to peer into the universe, allowing us to uncover long-standing mysteries surrounding objects such as black holes. Find out how it works and how to engage students in the science behind the mission.

Some of the wildest, most exciting features of our universe – from black holes to neutron stars – remain mysteries to us. What we do know is that because of their extreme environments, some of these emit highly energetic X-ray light, which we can detect despite the vast distances between us and the source.

Now, a NASA space telescope mission is using new techniques to not only scout out these distant phenomena, but also provide new information about their origins. Read on to learn how scientists are getting exciting new perspectives on our universe and what the future of X-ray astronomy holds.

How They Did It

In 2021, NASA launched the Imaging X-Ray Polarimeter Explorer, or IXPE, through a collaboration with Ball Aerospace and the Italian Space Agency. The space telescope is designed to operate for two years, detecting X-rays emitted from highly energetic objects in space, such as black holes, different types of neutron stars (e.g., pulsars and magnetars) and active galactic nuclei. In its first year, the telescope is focusing on roughly a dozen previously studied X-ray sources, spending hours or even days observing each target to reveal new data made possible by spacecraft's scientific instruments.

IXPE isn't the first telescope to observe the universe in X-ray light. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, launched in 1999, has famously spent more than 20 years photographing our universe at a wavelength of light exclusively found in high-energy environments, such as where cosmic materials are heated to millions of degrees as a result of intense magnetic fields or extreme gravity.

Using Chandra, scientists can assign colors to the different energy levels, or wavelengths, produced by these environments. This allows us to get a picture of the highly energetic light ejected by black holes and tiny neutron stars – small, but extremely dense stars with masses 10-25 times that of our Sun. These beautiful images, such as from Chandra’s first target, Cassiopeia A (Cas A for short), show the violent beauty of stars exploding.

A blue halo of squiggly lines surrounds an explosion of colors extending out from the center of the supernova. Closest to the center is a circular splatter of orange surrounded by green and yellow and finally a hazy purple.

This image of the supernova Cassiopeia A from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the location of different elements in the remains of the explosion: silicon (red), sulfur (yellow), calcium (green) and iron (purple). Each of these elements produces X-rays within narrow energy ranges, allowing maps of their location to be created. Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO | › Full image and caption

While Chandra has earned its name as one of “The Great Observatories,” astronomers have long desired to peer further into highly energetic environments in space by capturing them in even more detail.

IXPE expands upon Chandra’s work with the introduction of a tool called a polarimeter, an instrument used to understand the shape and direction of the light that reaches the space telescope's detectors. The polarimeter on IXPE allows scientists to gain insight into the finer details of black holes, supernovas, and magnetars, like which direction they are spinning and their three-dimensional shape.

A blue halo of squiggly lines surrounds a fuzzy donut-shaped haze of magenta with splatters of blue and white throughout.

This image of Cassiopeia A was created using some of the first X-ray data collected by IXPE, shown in magenta, combined with high-energy X-ray data from Chandra, in blue. Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/IXPE | › Full image and caption

While scientists have just begun putting IXPE's capabilities to use, they're already starting to reveal new details about the inner workings of these objects – such as the magnetic field environment around Cas A, shown in a newly released image.

The supernova remnant is shown as a blob of blue with swirls of brighter blues and large splatters of white. Dashed lines on top of the image flow from the center outward. Dividing the supernova and lines into quarter sections of a circle, the top right section has lines that flow directly northeast. The section at the bottom right has lines that flow nearly southeast but curve northwards slightly The section at the bottom left has lines that flow straight up from the bottom edge of the supernova, curve around the center and then flow back down. And the section at the top left has lines that flow from the center directly west, others that curve around the center and flow diagonally northwest and others that flow from the center to the north. Small sections of the lines are highlighted in green at the 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 4 o'clock, 7 o'clock and 11 o'clock portions of the supernova.

The lines in this newly released image come from IXPE measurements that show the direction of the magnetic field across regions of Cassiopeia A. Green lines indicate regions where the measurements are most highly significant. These results indicate that the magnetic field lines near the outskirts of the supernova remnant are largely oriented radially, i.e., in a direction from the center of the remnant outwards. The IXPE observations also reveal that the magnetic field over small regions is highly tangled, without a dominant preferred direction. Observations such as this one can help scientists learn how particles shooting out from supernovae interact with the magnetic field created by the explosion. Image credits: X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/SAO; IXPE: NASA/MSFC/J. Vink et al. | + Expand image | › Full image and caption

“For the first time, we will use every collected photon of light to tell us about the nature and shapes of objects in the sky that would be dots of light otherwise,” says Roger Romani, a Stanford professor and the co-investigator on IXPE.

How It Works

Generally, when light is produced, it is what we call unpolarized, meaning that it oscillates in every direction. For example, our Sun produces unpolarized light. But sometimes, light is produced in a highly organized fashion, oscillating only in one direction. In astronomy, this arises when magnetic fields force particles to incredibly high speeds, creating highly organized, or polarized, light.

This is what makes objects like the supernova Cas A such enticing targets for IXPE. Exploded stars like Cas A generate massive energetic waves when they go supernova, giving scientists a view of how particles shooting out at immense speeds interact with the magnetic fields from such an event. In the case of Cas A, IXPE was able to determine that the x-rays are not very polarized, meaning the explosion created very turbulent regions with multiple field directions.

While the idea of polarized or organized light may sound abstract, you may have noticed it the last time you were outside on a sunny day. If you’ve tried on a pair of polarized sunglasses, you may have noticed that the glare was greatly reduced. That’s because as light scatters, it bounces off of reflective surfaces in all directions. However, polarized lenses have tiny filters that only allow light coming from a narrow band of directions to pass through.

The polarimeter on IXPE works in a similar way. Astronomers can determine the strength of an object's magnetic field by using the polarimeter to measure how much of the light detected by the telescope is polarized. Typically, the more polarized the light the stronger the magnetic field at the source.

Astronomers can even go a step further to measure the direction this light is oscillating by measuring the angle of the light that reaches the telescope. Because the polarized light leaves the source in a predictable fashion – namely perpendicular from its magnetic field – knowing the angle of the oscillating light provides information about the axis of rotation and potentially even the surface structure of objects such as neutron stars and nebulae.

Side by side animations showing a rope moving from side to side through an open window and a rope moving up and down through an open window. As the window closes, fewer of the waves in the rope moving up and down make it through the window whereas the rope moving from side to side is undisturbed.

In this demonstration, the rope represents light waves and the open window represents a polarimeter. Depending on the angle of the light waves (rope), more or less information makes it through the polarimeter (window) the narrower it is. By measuring the amount of light received through the polarimeter, IXPE can determine the angle and the polarization of the light. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image

Imagine, for example, that you were holding one end of a piece of rope secured to an object at the other end. If you swung the rope side to side to make horizontal waves, those waves would be able to make it through a narrow target like a window. If you started to shut the window from the top, narrowing the opening, the waves could conceivably still make it through the opening. However, if you made veritcal waves by waving the rope up and down, as the window closed, fewer and fewer waves would make it through the opening. Likewise, by measuring the light that makes it through the polarimeter to the detector on the other side, IXPE can determine the angle of the light received.

To collect this light, IXPE uses three identical mirrors at the end of a four meter (13 foot) boom. The light received by IXPE is carefully focused on the spacecraft’s polarimeter at the other end of the boom, allowing scientists to collect those crucial measurements.

During the IXPE launch broadcast, commentators discuss the components of the spacecraft and how it measures polarization. | Watch on YouTube

Why It's Important

Building on Chandra's observations from the past two decades, IXPE's novel approach to X-ray science is pulling the curtain back even farther on some of the most fascinating objects in the universe, providing first looks at how and where radiation is being produced in some of the most extreme environments in the universe. IXPE's measurements of Cas A are just the beginning, with even more mysterious targets ready to be explored.

Take it from Martin Weisskopf, the principal scientist on IXPE and project scientist for Chandra, who has spent his 50-year career working in X-ray astronomy, who says, “IXPE will open up the field in ways we’ve been stuck only theorizing about."

Teach It

Explore more on how NASA uses light to map our universe, and dig deeper into some of the celestial features it allows to study, such as blackholes and neutron stars.

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NASA's Universe of Learning materials are based upon work supported by NASA under award number NNX16AC65A to the Space Telescope Science Institute, working in partnership with Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

TAGS: Universe, Stars and Galaxies, Space Telescope, IXPE, Astronomy, Science, Electromagnetic Spectrum, Universe of Learning

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brandon Rodriguez, Educator Professional Development Specialist, NASA-JPL Education Office

Brandon Rodriguez is the educator professional development specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Outside of promoting STEM education, he enjoys reading philosophy, travel and speaking to your dog like it's a person.

A Los Angeles math teacher gets students engaged with connections to science and exploring the human side of math, such as how leaders inspire change in their communities.

Katherine Risbrough has been teaching high school math for almost 10 years. She began her teaching career in the Hickory Hill community of Memphis, Tennessee, where she taught everything from Algebra 1 to Calculus and served as a math coach for the district. Five years ago, she came to Los Angeles to teach Integrated Math and Calculus at Synergy Quantum Academy High School.

Outside of math, Ms. Risbrough is also a superfan of college football and never misses a game at her alma mater, the University of Southern California. Her fandom for making the game is rivaled only by her love of Harry Potter, having been to every midnight book and movie release.

I caught up with Ms. Risbrough to find out how she gets students excited about math, and I learned about a new strategy she used this past year: bridging math and science by teaming up with the AP Physics teacher. Her cross-discipline curriculum focused on helping students make connections between subjects and got them engaged as they returned from more than a year of remote learning.

Math can be intimidating for students and it can be difficult to keep them engaged. How do you get your students excited about math?

A student at a desk holds open a worksheet while Ms. Risbrough leans over and points to a section of the worksheet.

Ms. Risbrough works with one of her calculus students. Image courtesy: Katherine Risbrough | + Expand image

Sometimes it's easier said than done, but math needs to be as hands-on and discussion-based as possible. We use a lot of the calc-medic curriculum, which is application and discovery first followed by a whole class discussion to share ideas and cement new learning. When students have to speak and defend a hypothesis or an argument, they are practicing mathematical reasoning, which is a skill they can take into all STEM coursework. I avoid lectures as much as possible. We also do a lot of flipped classroom learning (videos at home and practice in class), group work, use technology, and do activities that get students moving around the classroom.

I believe that learning mathematics should be a collaborative, exploratory process and that every student already has the skills necessary to become a successful mathematician. It’s my job to give them opportunities to show off and strengthen those skills, so that they can be just as successful with or without me present to help them.

This year you’ve introduced some interesting projects to make your class more interdisciplinary. Tell me a bit more about that.

I’ve really focused on keeping the math contextualized by being sure the content is interdisciplinary. For example, over half of my AP Calculus students are also taking AP Physics. This year, in particular, I was sure to coordinate with the physics teacher to see how we could align our curriculum in kinematics with what we were doing with integrals and derivatives. This began with students doing JPL’s additive velocity lesson in their physics class to set the stage for how calculus ties together acceleration, velocity, and displacement.

Both classes are so challenging for students, but when they see how strategies in one class can help lift them in another, it’s almost as if they are getting to see two different strategies to solve the same problem. Designing challenges that could be solved with both physics and math gave the students an ability to approach problems from either side. At first, they were pretty intimidated to see their two most challenging classes teaming up, but the end result was some incredible student projects and dramatic improvement in their ability to graph out relationships.

I also kick off new units by making connections to students' own life or even their future careers. They need to know the “why” beyond just, “because you’ll be tested on it.” We try to talk about STEM historical figures and current leaders (specifically mathematicians and scientists of color) as often as possible. For example, I use clips from the movies "October Sky" and "Hidden Figures" to set the stage and then lead into projects about rocket trajectories and elliptical orbits.

Pieces of paper with math terms such as 'graph' and 'function' printed on them are taped to a desk. Lines and arrows drawn with marker connect that various pieces of paper and notes are written off to the side.

Students in Ms. Risbrough's class map out language and processes to better understand shapes and limits in functions. Image courtesy: Katherine Risbrough | + Expand image

This year, in calculus, we started the year with the idea of “Agents of Change” and looked at thought leaders such as veteran astronaut Ellen Ochoa and climate scientist Nicole Hernandez Hammer and how their work relates to “instant rates of change” and “average rates of change” in calculus. Then, I had students think about moments of change in their life, and how that instant can be carried forward to a make a long term change in their careers and communities.

Coming back from COVID-19 and more than a year of remote instruction, how are your students adjusting to being back in the classroom?

Our students missed out on so many social and academic opportunities because of COVID, but they aren’t letting that stop them. The biggest struggle was starting off the school year and getting back into routines. Because of the demographics of our students, there have been more absences than usual, as many of our students help support their family at home. Many parents struggled to keep work through the pandemic, and a lot of my students work outside of school or take care of their siblings. The effects of caring for their families while still trying to focus on applying to college has really taken a toll on students.

I’m fortunate that so many kids are comfortable and open sharing feelings of increased anxiety, responsibility, or worry over the past two years. I believe it's important that my classroom and our group first and foremost be an escape from that space rather than an added stress. Their success in math – even a rigorous AP math class with a breakneck pace – comes from me being there for them as a person first and a teacher second. We focus so much on “catching them up” that we forget to take some time for them to process all they have had to manage.

A group of five students with long dark hair stand next to each other and Ms. Risbrough looking at a whiteboard with graphs drawn on it.

AP Calculus students graph out kinematics as examples of integrals and derivatives. Image courtesy: Katherine Risbrough | + Expand image

As we move toward graduation, what is one story of success that you will take away from this year?

Honestly, it's the success of my students. They have jumped into AP Calculus after 1.5 years of distance learning and the social-emotional learning burdens of Covid, and have done amazing work. They are thoughtful, persistent, and often learning multiple grades worth of skills within one calculus lesson. I guess I'm a small piece of that, but all that I've really done is give them space to explore, discuss, and learn. It's what they've done with that space that has been the best thing to watch!

Looking for ways to bring NASA STEM into your classroom or already have a great idea? The Education Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory serves educators in the greater Los Angeles area. Contact us at education@jpl.nasa.gov.

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TAGS: Teachers, School, Classroom, Instruction, K-12, High School, Math, Calculus, Physics, Algebra, Lessons, Resources

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brandon Rodriguez, Educator Professional Development Specialist, NASA-JPL Education Office

Brandon Rodriguez is the educator professional development specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Outside of promoting STEM education, he enjoys reading philosophy, travel and speaking to your dog like it's a person.

Learn about the role that dust plays in Earth's climate, why scientists are interested in studying dust from space, and how to engage students in the science with STEM resources from JPL.

A NASA instrument launched to the International Space Station this summer will explore how dust impacts global temperatures, cloud formation, and the health of our oceans. The Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation, or EMIT, is the first instrument of its kind, designed to collect measurements from space of some of the most arid regions on Earth to understand the composition of soils that generate dust and the larger role dust plays in climate change.

Read on to find out how the instrument works and why scientists are hoping to learn more about the composition of dust. Then, explore how to bring the science into your classroom with related climate lessons that bridge physical sciences with engineering practices.

Why It’s Important

Scientists have long studied the movements of dust. The fact that dust storms can carry tiny particles great distances was reported in the scientific literature nearly two centuries ago by none other than Charles Darwin as he sailed across the Atlantic on the HMS Beagle. What still remains a mystery all these years later is what that dust is made of, how it moves, and how that affects the health of our planet.

For example, we now know that dust deposited on snow speeds up snow melt even more than increased air temperature. That is to say, that dust traveling to cold places can cause increased snow melt.

Sharp mountain peaks are covered in splotches of snow with a fine coating of dust visible on top of the snow.

A coating of dust on snow speeds the pace of snowmelt in the spring. Credit: NASA | + Expand image

Dust can affect air temperatures as well. For example, dust with more iron absorbs light and can cause the air to warm, while dust with less iron reflects light and is responsible for local cooling. Iron in dust can also act as a fertilizer for plankton in oceans, supplying them with nutrients needed for growth and reproduction.

A plume of dust eminates from over the Copper River in Alaska, spreading out as this series of overhead satellite images progresses.

A plume of dust is shown emanating from over Alaska's Copper River in October 2016 in these images captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, instrument on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. Dust storms play a key role in fueling phytoplankton blooms by delivering iron to the Gulf of Alaska. Credit: NASA | › Full image and caption

Floating dust potentially alters the composition of clouds and how quickly or slowly they form, which can ultimately impact weather patterns, including the formation of hurricanes. That’s because clouds need particles to act as seeds around which droplets of moisture in the atmosphere can form. This process of coalescing water particles, called nucleation, is one factor in how clouds form.

An overhead view of a swirl of clouds mixed with a streak of dust like a swirl of milk froth in a cappuccino

A swirl of dust mixes with the clouds in a low-pressure storm over the Gobi desert between Mongolia and China. This image was captured by the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite in May 2019. Credit: NASA | › Full image and caption

Thanks to EMIT, we’ll take the first steps in understanding how the movements of dust particles contribute to local and global changes in climate by producing “mineral maps”. These mineral maps will reveal differences in the chemical makeup of dust, providing essential information to help us model the way dust can transform Earth’s climate.

› Learn more about what EMIT will do from JPL News

How It Works

NASA has been exploring how dust moves across the globe by combining on-the-ground field studies with cutting-edge technology.

Dr. Olga Kalashnikova, an aerosol scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a co-investigator for EMIT, has been using satellite data to study atmospheric mineral dust for many years, including tracking the movements of dust and investigating trends in the frequency of dust storms.

As Dr. Kalashnikova describes, “From the ground, we can see what types of dusts are lifted into the atmosphere by dust storms on a local scale, but with EMIT, we can understand how they differ and where they originally came from.”

EMIT is the first instrument designed to observe a key part of the mineral dust cycle from space, allowing scientists to track different dust compositions on a global scale, instead of in just one region at a time. To understand dust’s impact on Earth’s climate, scientists will use EMIT to answer key questions, including:

How does dust uplifted in the atmosphere alter global temperatures?
What role do dusts play in fertilizing our oceans when they are deposited?
How do dust particles in the atmosphere affect cloud nucleation; the process by which clouds are ‘seeded’ and begin to coalesce into larger clouds?

A picture of the EMIT instrument, shaped like a small megaphone, is overlaid on an picture of the International Space Station flying above Earth.

The EMIT instrument will fly aboard the International Space Station, which orbits Earth about once every 90 minutes, completing about 16 orbits per day. Credit: NASA | + Expand image

To achieve its objectives, EMIT will spend 12 months collecting what are called “hyperspectral images” of some of the most arid regions of our planet selected by scientists and engineers as areas of high dust mobility, such as Northern Africa, the Middle East, and the American Southwest.

These images are measurements of light reflected from the Earth below, calibrated to the distinct patterns, or spectra, of light we see when certain minerals are present. The EMIT team has identified 10 minerals that are most common, including gypsum, hematite, and kaolinite.

Bands of satellite images looking at a seciton of Earth are highlighted in different colors to reveal different concentrations of minerals.

This example spectra shows how scientists will be able to identify different concentrations of minerals and elements in data collected by EMIT. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image

Why are these minerals important? One key reason is the presence or absence of the element iron, found in some minerals but not others.

Dr. Bethany Ehlmann is a planetary scientist and co-investigator for the EMIT project at Caltech and explains that when it comes to heating, “a little bit of iron goes a long way.” Iron in minerals absorbs visible and infrared light, meaning that even if only a small amount is present, it will result in a much warmer dust particle. Large amounts of warm dust in our atmosphere may have an impact on temperatures globally since those dust particles radiate heat as they travel, sometimes as far as across oceans!

Collecting images from space is, of course, no easy task, especially when trying to look only at the ground below. Yet it does allow scientists to get a global picture that's not possible to capture from the ground. Field studies allow us to take individual samples from tiny places of interest, but from space, we can scan the entire planet in remote places where no scientist can visit.

The International Space Station flies over Earth as a radar beam shines down over a desert area, making a colorful data map of its obversations.

Event: EMIT Launch

Learn more about the launch and find out how to get students engaged with the project using STEM education resources from JPL.

Of course, there are some complications in trying to study the light reflected off the surface of Earth, such as interference from clouds. To prevent this problem, the EMIT team plans to collect data at each location several times to ensure that the images aren’t being obscured by clouds between the instrument and the minerals we’re looking for.

The data collected by EMIT will provide a map of the compositions of dust from dry, desert environments all over the world, but the team involved won’t stop there. Knowing more about what the dust is made of sets the stage for a broader understanding of a few more of the complex processes that make up our global climate cycle. Upon completion of this study, EMIT's mineral maps will support further campaigns to complete our global dust picture. For example, NASA hopes to couple the data from EMIT with targeted field campaigns, in which scientists can collect wind-blown dust from the ground to learn more about where dust particles move over time and answer questions about what types of dust are on the go.

Furthermore, missions such as the Multiangle Imager for Aerosols, or MAIA, will allow us to better understand the effects of these dust particles on air-quality and public health.

Teach it

Studying Earth’s climate is a complex puzzle, consisting of many trackable features. These can range from sea level to particles in our atmosphere, but each makes a contribution to measuring the health of our planet. Bring EMIT and NASA Earth Science into your classroom with these lessons, articles, and activities to better understand how we’re exploring climate change.

Educator Guides

Student Activities

Articles

Websites

TAGS: Earth, climate, geology, weather, EMIT, Teachers, Classroom, Lessons, Earth Science, Climate Change, Dust, Global Warming, Educators, K-12, Teachable Moments, Climate TM

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brandon Rodriguez, Educator Professional Development Specialist, NASA-JPL Education Office

Brandon Rodriguez is the educator professional development specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Outside of promoting STEM education, he enjoys reading philosophy, travel and speaking to your dog like it's a person.

This fourth-grade teacher is finding creative ways to get her students back into the flow of classroom learning with the help of STEAM education resources from JPL.

Jackie Prosser is a fourth-grade teacher in Fairfield, California, finishing her second year as a classroom teacher. She is a recent graduate of the University of California, Riverside, where she simultaneously received her teaching credential and her master's in education. This was where I was fortunate enough to meet Miss Prosser, through a collaboration between the Education Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and UCR designed to help new teachers incorporate STEM into their future classrooms. She and her cohort immediately struck me as passionate future teachers already exploring unique ways to bring space science into their teaching.

But it's been a challenging transition for Miss Prosser and teachers like her who started their careers amid a pandemic. She began her student-teaching in person only to find that she would have to switch to teaching remotely just four months into the job. Now, she's back in the classroom but facing new challenges getting students up to speed academically while reacquainting them with the social aspects of in-person learning.

I caught up with her to find out how she's managing the transition and developing creative ways to support the individual needs of her students and, at the same time, incorporating science and art into her curriculum with the help of STEAM resources from the JPL Education Office.

Resources for Teachers

Bring the wonder of space to your students. Explore our universe of science, technology, engineering and math activities and resources.

What made you want to become an elementary school teacher?

Originally, I became a teacher because I love to see that moment of light when a concept finally clicks in a kid’s mind. I am still a teacher (even after the craziest two years ever) because every kid deserves someone to fight for them, and I know I can be that person for at least 32 kids a year.

I love to teach young kids especially for two reasons. The first is their honesty; no one will tell you exactly like it is like a nine-year-old will. The second is that I love the excitement kids have for learning at this age.

It has been a bumpy couple years, especially this past school year when it was unclear if we would be remote again or back in the classroom. How has it been coming back from remote learning?

Coming back from remote learning has been an incredible challenge, but we’ve come a long way since the beginning of the year. Students really struggled being back in a highly structured environment. It was very hard to balance meeting the individual needs of each student and getting them used to the structure and expectations of the classroom.

My fourth graders were online for the last part of second grade and a vast majority of third grade. This is when students really start to solve conflicts and regulate their emotions with less support from adults. I have seen a lot more problems with emotion regulation and conflict among my students this year than in years past.

There is a lot of pressure on teachers right now to make up for all the learning loss and for students being behind on grade-level standards. But I don’t think enough people talk about how much joy and social interaction they also lost during remote learning. Teachers are also feeling the pressure of that. I want to help my students be the very best versions of themselves and being happy and comfortable with themselves is a huge part of that.

A student looks at a page from the NASA Solar System Exploration website. Image courtesy: Jackie Prosser | + Expand image

How do you structure your class to get students back in the flow of a school setting?

I use a lot of manipulatives in my math lessons and try to make their learning as hands-on as possible. I also teach math in small groups to be able to better meet the individual needs of my students. I have one group with me learning the lesson, one group doing their independent practice of the skill, and one group on their computers. Then, the students switch until each group has done each activity.

You’re a big fan of science and came to several JPL Education workshops while you were still in school yourself. Are there JPL Education resources that you have found particularly impactful for your students?

I have always loved teaching science. It is so often left behind or pushed aside. I think a lot of time that happens because teachers feel like they do not have enough background knowledge to teach high-quality science lessons or they think that the lessons will add to the already enormous workload teachers have. My district does not have an adopted or prescribed curriculum for teachers to follow, so we have a lot of freedom for when and how to make the time for STEAM.

The education resources [from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory] have made it so easy for me to teach and get kids excited about science, and my kids absolutely love them. Our favorites always seem to be Make a Paper Mars Helicopter and Art and the Cosmic Connection.

A student holds a paper Mars helicopter. Image courtesy: Jackie Prosser | + Expand image

I also am part of my district’s science pilot program. It has been so cool to be able to decide what curriculum to pilot and watch my students test it out and give feedback on their learning. Last year, I had the amazing opportunity to teach science for two elementary schools’ summer programs. My partner teacher and I got to create the curriculum for them, and we pulled a ton of lessons from the JPL Education website. It was by far the most fun I have ever had at a job.

Despite being a new teacher, you’ve already seen so much. How have you navigated the changing landscape?

I have an amazing network of teachers supporting me at every turn. My grade-level team and my friends from my credential program are some of the most amazing people and educators I have ever met. There is no way I would be able to get through the more difficult aspects of teaching without them.

I am also coaching the boys soccer team, directing the school’s "Lion King Jr." play, contributing to the science pilot program, and serving on the social committee for teachers and staff. I love using these different roles to make connections with not just my students, but also students from all grades.

Looking for ways to bring NASA STEM into your classroom or already have a great idea? The Education Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory serves educators in the greater Los Angeles area. Contact us at education@jpl.nasa.gov.

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TAGS: Teachers, School, Remote School, Classroom, Instruction, K-12, Fourth Grade, STEAM, Science, Math, Art, UC Riverside, resources, lessons

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brandon Rodriguez, Educator Professional Development Specialist, NASA-JPL Education Office

Brandon Rodriguez is the educator professional development specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Outside of promoting STEM education, he enjoys reading philosophy, travel and speaking to your dog like it's a person.

Jayme Wisdom has been teaching for 15 years at the Vaughn Charter System in Pacoima, California. She has taught eighth-grade science for most of her career but switched to high school biology for the first time this year.

Ms. Wisdom has long utilized NASA and JPL educational resources, finding creative ways to adapt lessons to meet her students’ needs and exposing them to STEM careers.

A self-described professional nerd, she doesn't shy away from her love of all things Star Trek and Star Wars (and stands firm in her refusal to pick which is superior). While presenting during a recent JPL Education workshop, she shared how she continues to get her students excited about science – both in the classroom and remotely – during the COVID era.

What unique challenges do you face engaging or addressing the needs of your students?

Many of the students I teach face challenges including poverty, homelessness, and learning English as a second language. This year, in particular, has been extremely difficult for all of us dealing with the pandemic and distance learning. As a teacher, I have had to find ways to make sure that my students are engaged in scientific inquiry and have access to resources and materials while learning remotely. This begins and ends with a conscious effort to acknowledge that kids are struggling with this online format and carving out time in every single class to provide the socio-emotional support they have come to expect from a classroom environment. Before we dive into content, this means making time for check-ins and updates. In any in-person classroom, we carve out time to get to know each other, and being online should not diminish that. Of course, as we all learned this year, easier said than done.

Social isolation is another factor that contributes to the challenges of distance learning. Even though students see their peers virtually, it is often difficult for them to open up and talk as freely as they would if they were in a physical classroom. So I have had to find ways to make sure that my students are comfortable with engaging in a virtual setting by allowing them opportunities to talk and collaborate with each other online.

Lessons for Educators

Bring NASA STEM into the classroom with standards-aligned lessons exploring Earth, Mars, and worlds beyond.

Using breakout sessions was difficult at first, because the students were very self-conscious about speaking to each other on screen and were reluctant to share ideas. So every day, we spent the first few minutes in each class just talking to each other through text-based chat to get them socializing and feeling more comfortable with this new way of interacting. Now they are more comfortable engaging in scientific inquiry with each other and have meaningful discussions to expand their learning. It is not the same as having them physically perform labs together in class but things are definitely improving.

Another challenge has been providing all of my students with access to resources and materials that allow them to simulate a laboratory experience at home. I have been pleasantly surprised at the wealth of resources I have available to me as a teacher to provide virtual labs and activities to my students. Whether it is virtual demonstrations and simulations or scientific investigations that require simple materials that students can find around the house, we have been very resourceful so we can give students the best experience possible through distance learning. Promoting lab science with home supplies has been instrumental in student engagement, as they really get to explore in their own context, expressing themselves creatively with what they have at their disposal instead of being provided the materials.

How have you used lessons from NASA and JPL to keep students engaged while teaching in person and remotely?

I have always been fascinated by outer space and have loved sci-fi TV shows and movies since I was very young. So as a teacher, I was so excited to discover ways to use my love of astronomy to engage my students.

When I discovered NASA and JPL's resources and lessons, I went through them like a kid in a candy store. I found so many different activities that I could adapt to use in my own classroom. Over the past few years, I have used several JPL Education lessons and modified and extended them for my students.

Three students in gray sweatshirts huddle around a cardboard rover, placing tape across its center.

While remote instruction has had its challenges, Ms. Windsom found that getting students to strike up conversations via chat at the start of class made students more willing to collaborate and share their designs for projects usually done in the classroom, like these cardboard rovers. Image courtesy: Shirley Yong and Malak Kawtharani | + Expand image

For example, I took JPL's Touchdown lesson and allowed students to create their own planetary lander using materials they could find around their home. I challenged them to create a way to quantify how much impact the touchdown would have on the "astronauts" in their lander. Some students used balls of play dough as their astronauts, and quantified the impact by measuring the dents made in the play dough by paper clips that they had placed on the "seats" of their lander.

Another example was when I combined the Soda-Straw Rocket and Stomp Rockets lessons. I had my students create a straw-stomp rocket to investigate how changing the angle of the rocket launch could have an effect on the distance the rocket traveled.

My students also had the opportunity to participate in engineering activities with JPL and college students from Pasadena City College. The impact that this had on my students was profound and long-lasting. It was inspiring for my students to hear from NASA scientists and student role-models who encouraged them to pursue careers in science, engineering, and technology.

Students look on, some holding their ears, as Ms. Wisdom holds a large red balloon while NASA/JPL Education Specialist Brandon Rodriguez lights a match underneath it as part of the Global Warming Demonstration.

Ms. Wisdom says that pesentations from STEM professionals go a long way toward engaging students, so she has made them a fixture in her classes – whether in person or remote. Image courtesy: Shirley Yong and Malak Kawtharani | + Expand image

How have students reacted to these lessons?

The biggest payoff for me was seeing students envision themselves as NASA scientists. They learned to collaborate with each other, learn from each other, and challenge each other. They were able to experience every step of the engineering process firsthand. They were actively involved in designing, building, and testing their rockets and landers. They could also gather information from watching other students revise and improve their designs. Learning from each other was so much fun for them. As a teacher, watching my students strengthen their critical thinking, practical engineering, and problem-solving skills is one of the best parts of my job.

You switched from teaching middle school to teaching high school this year. How are you thinking about incorporating NASA resources into lessons for older students?

Growing up, I loved how the technology that I saw in the sci-fi shows I watched as a kid eventually made its way into our reality. I am always amazed at how NASA scientists push the boundaries of technology development and are only limited by the scope of their imagination.

As a high school biology teacher, I'm looking forward to having my students examine the ways that space technology is being used to help humans improve the health of the planet. Investigating climate change and the ecological impact humans have on the environment is so important. Looking at how NASA gathers data to better understand climate change is especially critical at this time because my students' generation is going to play a pivotal role in developing technologies for improving life on Earth. I'm looking forward to continuing to use JPL Education resources to help my students prepare for that challenge.

Looking for ways to bring NASA STEM into your classroom or already have a great idea? The Education Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory serves educators in the greater Los Angeles area. Contact us at education@jpl.nasa.gov.

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TAGS: Teaching, Teachers, K-12, Middle School, High School, Remote Instruction, Classroom, Lessons, Educators, Workshops, Professional Development

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brandon Rodriguez, Educator Professional Development Specialist, NASA-JPL Education Office

Brandon Rodriguez is the educator professional development specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Outside of promoting STEM education, he enjoys reading philosophy, travel and speaking to your dog like it's a person.

Learn how, why, and what Perseverance will explore on Mars, plus find out about an exciting opportunity for you and your students to join in the adventure!

In the News

On Feb. 18, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover touched down on the Red Planet after a seven-month flight from Earth. Only the fifth rover to land on the planet, Perseverance represents a giant leap forward in our scientific and technological capabilities for exploring Mars and the possibility that life may have once existed on the Red Planet.

Here, you will:

Meet the Perseverance Mars rover and find out what it's designed to do.
Learn about an exciting opportunity to get your classroom, educational organization, or household involved with the Mission to Mars Student Challenge.

Why It's Important

You might be wondering, "Isn't there already a rover on Mars?” The answer is yes! The Curiosity rover landed on Mars in 2012 and has spent its time on the Red Planet making fascinating discoveries about the planet's geology and environment – setting the stage for Perseverance. So, why send another rover to Mars? The lessons we’ve learned from Curiosity coupled with advancements in technology over the last decade are allowing us to take the next big steps in our exploration of Mars, including looking for signs of ancient microbial life, collecting rock samples to bring to Earth one day, and setting the stage for a potential future human mission to the Red Planet.

More specifically, the Perseverance Mars rover has four science objectives:

Identify past environments on Mars that could have supported microbial life
Seek signs of ancient microbial life within the rocks and soil using a new suite of scientific instruments
Collect rock samples of interest to be stored on the surface for possible return by future missions
Pave the way for human exploration beyond the Moon

With these science objectives in mind, let's take a look at how the mission is designed to achieve these goals – from its science-rich landing site, Jezero Crater, to its suite of onboard tools and technology.

How It Works

Follow the Water

A false-color satellite image of Jezero Crater is green and yellow around the edges with a large blue circular crater in the middle.

Lighter colors represent higher elevation in this image of Jezero Crater on Mars, the landing site for the Perseverance rover. The black oval indicates the area in which the rover will touch down, also called a landing ellipse. Image Credit: NASA JPL/Caltech/MSSS/JHU-APL/ESA | › Full image and caption

While present-day Mars is a cold, barren planet, science suggests that it was once very similar to Earth. The presence of clay, dried rivers and lakes, and minerals that formed in the presence of water provide extensive evidence that Mars once had flowing water at its surface. As a result, a mission looking for signs of ancient life, also known as biosignatures, should naturally follow that water. That’s because water represents the essential ingredient for life as we know it on Earth, and it can host a wide variety of organisms.

This is what makes Perseverance's landing site in Jezero Crater such a compelling location for scientific exploration. The crater was originally formed by an ancient meteorite impact about 3.8 billion years ago, and it sits within an even larger, older impact basin. The crater also appears to have once been home to an ancient lake fed by a river that formed the delta where Perseverance will begin its exploration, by exploring the foot of the river delta.

Take a tour of Perseverance's landing site in this animated flyover of the Martian surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | Watch on YouTube

Tools of the Trade

Perseverance will begin its scientific exploration with the assistance of an array of tools, also known as science instruments.

An illustration of the rover is shown with each of its science instruments deployed and identified.

This artist's concept shows the various science tools, or instruments, onboard the rover. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | › Learn more about the rover's science instruments

Like its predecessor, Perseverance will have a number of cameras – 23, in fact! – serving as the eyes of the rover for scientists and engineers back on Earth. Nine of these cameras are dedicated to mobility, or tracking the rover's movements; six will capture images and videos as the rover travels through the Martian atmosphere down to the surface, a process known as entry, descent, and landing; and seven are part of the science instrumentation.

The SuperCam instrument is shown on a laboratory table before being installed on the rover.

SuperCam's mast unit before being installed atop the Perseverance rover's remote sensing mast. The electronics are inside the gold-plated box on the left. The end of the laser peeks out from behind the left side of the electronics. Image credit: CNES | › Learn more about SuperCam

Six pump-like structures control a rectangular metal instrument in this animated image.

PIXL can make slow, precise movements to point at specific parts of a rock's surface so the instrument's X-ray can discover where – and in what quantity – chemicals are distributed in a given sample. This GIF has been considerably sped up to show how the hexapod moves. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | › Learn more about PIXL

A small camera sits in gold-color housing on a white rover body.

A close-up view of an engineering model of SHERLOC, one the instruments aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | › Learn more about SHERLOC

Navcam, located on the mast (or "head") of the rover, will capture images to help engineers control the rover. Meanwhile, Mastcam-Z, also on the rover’s mast, can zoom in, focus, and take 3D color pictures and video at high speed to allow detailed examination of distant objects. A third camera, Supercam, fires a small laser burst to excite compounds on the surface and determine their composition using spectroscopy. Supercam is also equipped with a microphone. This microphone (one of two on the rover) will allow scientists to hear the pop the laser makes upon hitting its target, which may give scientists additional information about the hardness of the rock.

Leaning more toward chemistry, the Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) will allow us to look at the composition of rocks and soil down to the size of a grain of salt. Elements respond to different types of light, such as X-rays, in predictable ways. So by shining an X-ray on Martian rocks and soil, we can identify elements that may be part of a biosignature.

Meanwhile, a device called SHERLOC will look for evidence of ancient life using a technique called Deep UV Raman spectroscopy. Raman spectroscopy can help scientists see the crystallinity and molecular structure of rocks and soil. For example, some molecules and crystals luminesce, or emit light, when exposed to ultraviolet – similar to how a blacklight might be used to illuminate evidence in a crime scene. Scientists have a good understanding of how chemicals considered key to life on Earth react to things like ultraviolet light. So, SHERLOC could help us identify those same chemicals on Mars. In other words, it can contribute to identifying those biosignatures we keep talking about.

Rounding out its role as a roving geologist on wheels, Perseverance also has instruments for studying beneath the surface of Mars. An instrument called the Radar Imager of Mars Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) will use ground-penetrating radar to analyze depths down to about 100 feet (30 meters) below the surface. Mounted on the rear of the rover, RIMFAX will help us understand geological features that can't be seen by the other cameras and instruments.

The rover's suite of instruments demonstrates how multiple scientific disciplines – chemistry, physics, biology, geology, and engineering – work in concert to further our understanding of Mars and help scientists uncover whether life ever existed on the Red Planet.

Next Generation Tech

At NASA, scientists and engineers are always looking to push the envelope and, while missions such as Perseverance are ambitious in themselves, they also provide an opportunity for NASA to test new technology that could be used for future missions. Two excellent examples of such technology joining Perseverance on Mars are MOXIE and the first ever Mars helicopter, Ingenuity.

Engineers in white smocks lower a gold-colored cube into the rover

Members of Perseverance mission team install MOXIE into the belly of the rover in the cleanroom at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | › Full image and caption

MOXIE stands for the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment. Operating at 800 degrees Celsius, MOXIE takes in carbon dioxide (CO2) from the thin Martian atmosphere and splits those molecules into pure oxygen using what is called a catalyst. A catalyst is a chemical that allows for reactions to take place under conditions they normally wouldn’t. MOXIE provides an incredible opportunity for NASA to create something usable out of the limited resources available on Mars. Over the duration of the rover's mission, MOXIE will run for a total of one hour every time it operates, distributed over the course of the prime mission timeframe, to determine whether it can reliably produce breathable oxygen. The goal of operating this way is to allow scientists to determine the performance across a variety of environmental conditions that a dedicated, human-mission-sized oxygen plant would see during operations - day versus night, winter versus summer, etc. Oxygen is of great interest for future missions not just because of its necessity for future human life support on Mars, but also because it can be used as a rocket propellant, perhaps allowing for future small-scale sample return missions to Earth.

The helicopter with four long blades, a cube-shape body and long skinny legs sites in the forground with the wheels of the rover visible to its right.

This artist's concept shows Ingenuity, the first Mars helicopter, on the Red Planet's surface with Perseverance (partially visible on the left) in the distance. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | › Full image and caption

The Mars Ingenuity helicopter is likewise an engineering first. It is a technology demonstration to test powered flight on Mars. Because the Martian atmosphere is so thin, flight is incredibly difficult. So, the four-pound (1.8-kilogram), solar powered helicopter is specially designed with two, four-foot (1.2-meter) long counter-rotating blades that spin at 2,400 rotations per minute. In the months after Perseverance lands, Ingenuity will drop from the belly of the rover. If all goes well, it will attempt test flights of increasing difficulty, covering incrementally greater heights and distances for about 30 days. In the future, engineers hope flying robots can allow for a greater view of the surrounding terrain for robotic and human missions alike.

Teach It

Take part in a worldwide “teachable moment” and bring students along for the ride as NASA lands the Perseverance rover on Mars February 18. Science communicator and host of “Emily’s Wonder Lab” on Netflix, Emily Calandrelli, shares how you can join the adventure with your students! | Register on Eventbrite

The process of landing on Mars with such an advanced mission is no doubt an exciting opportunity to engage students across all aspects of STEM – and NASA wants to help teachers, educators and families bring students along for the adventure with the Mission to Mars Student Challenge. This challenge will lead students through designing and building a mission to Mars with a guided education plan and resources from NASA, listening to expert talks, and sharing student work with a worldwide audience.

Learn more about the challenge and explore additional education resources related to the Perseverance Mars rover mission at https://go.nasa.gov/mars-challenge

Students write formulas on a window with a group of people working behind them

Watch Online

Explore online events leading up to and on landing day.

Watch the Landing

The next chapter of Perseverance’s journey takes place on Feb. 18 at 12 p.m. PST (3 p.m. EST), when the mission reaches Mars after seven months of travelling through space. Join NASA as we countdown to landing with online events for teachers, students, and space enthusiasts! The landing day broadcast can be seen on NASA TV and the agency's website starting at 11:15 a.m. PST (2:15 p.m. EST). For a full listing of online events leading up to and on landing day, visit the mission's Watch Online page.

Follow landing updates on NASA's Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Explore More

More Resources From NASA

Website: Perseverance Mars Rover

Website: NASA Mars Exploration

Website: Space Place - All About Mars

Video: Perseverance Mission Landing Trailer

Profiles: Meet the Martians

Simulation: Fly Along with Perseverance in Real-Time

Virtual Events: Watch Online – NASA Mars Exploration

Videos: Mars exploration videos from NASA

Images: Mars exploration images and graphics from NASA

Articles: Articles about Mars exploration from NASA

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TAGS: Mars, Perseverance, Mars 2020, Science, Engineering, Robotics, Educators, Teachers, Students, Teachable Moments, Teach, Learn, Mars Landing

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brandon Rodriguez, Educator Professional Development Specialist, NASA-JPL Education Office

Brandon Rodriguez is the educator professional development specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Outside of promoting STEM education, he enjoys reading philosophy, travel and speaking to your dog like it's a person.

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