During the 2016-2017 school year, the EPDC at JPL participated in more than 120 school events focusing on teacher professional development, including implementing Next Generation Science Standards, helping schools initiate science fairs and community events, and assisting with student presentations. That number includes more than 5,000 teachers and students who worked with the EPDC on initiatives designed to get NASA science and engineering into the hands of future space explorers.
As the EPDC coordinator for JPL, I schedule and help shape these events for schools and teacher preparation programs in Southern California, coordinating and consulting with educators to help them bring standards-aligned NASA STEM content into the classroom. My work and the ways in which I support educators can take many shapes. Teachers often ask me to visit during regularly scheduled professional development or early dismissal days. These represent the most common events, wherein schools choose topics or themes to focus on and the time is spent practicing hands-on activities for students. This year, teachers and schools have come up with new and especially creative formats, scheduling onsite tours and workshops at JPL for their teaching staff, or even having NASA scientists dial in to their classrooms to talk with students.
One school in particular took its program to another level with the help of the EPDC at JPL by building a grade-wide, multi-week mission to Mars. For their annual cross-curricular project, teachers at the San Fernando Institute for Applied Media in Los Angeles were hoping to create a more expansive offering that incorporated the Next Generation Science Standards, or NGSS. I met with teachers over several days to suggest activities and strategies that would meet their goal of getting students engaged in space science across numerous subject areas.
Students were tasked to explore the history of space exploration and the pioneers who led the charge. Using NASA lessons like those found on the JPL Education website, the students built conceptual models of Mars missions, including calculating the budget associated with such a trek. They then constructed robotic rovers capable of traversing a simulated Martian surface and the tools needed to interact with the local environment.
But what really set the program apart was its focus on collaboration. The school thought beyond the content of the lesson itself, making NASA badges for each student and having them refer to each other as “doctor.” Students designed their own team name and logo. They also used Web-based apps to capture pictures and videos of their work during each class and posted them online, allowing groups to digitally follow the revisions and lessons learned by their classmates. As a year-end culminating event, students presented their work in front of their classmates, and I was fortunate to be in attendance to celebrate the hard work of the teachers and students.
In Chicago, Burley Elementary staff reached out to me via our distance learning program to revise an existing lesson for an elementary-level special education audience. Working together, the staff and I created a project using JPL’s NGSS-aligned Touchdown lesson to demonstrate the value of the engineering design process, revision and collaboration.
At the onset of the project, students were tasked to develop a spacecraft capable of landing astronauts safely on a distant planet. Each day concluded with students testing their designs and documenting the changes they made. Again, student groups captured their revisions digitally, praising others and crediting them for ideas that influenced their work. As a result, student groups learned the value of collaboration over competition.
From the educator’s point of view, the evolution of students’ designs also provided a narrative for assessment: Each student group had three designs constructed along with written and recorded diaries discussing the changes they made. The rubric included analysis of their own trials as well as the peer designs that shaped their future trials, creating in-depth student storyboards.
In both of these cases, the educators’ creativity, expertise and interest in creating novel opportunities for professional development and student engagement helped elevate the quality of the EPDC’s offerings and expand the scope of JPL’s STEM lessons. I’ve since been able to incorporate the ideas and strategies created during these projects into other workshops and lessons, sharing them with an even wider group of educators and classrooms. While not every collaboration between the EPDC and educators need be multi-day endeavors, even when done on a small scale, they can have a big impact.
Looking to bring NASA science into your classroom or need help customizing lessons for your students and staff? The EPDC at JPL serves educators in the greater Los Angeles area. Contact JPL education specialist Brandon Rodriguez at brandon.rodriguez@jpl.nasa.gov. Note: Due to the popularity of EPDC programs, JPL may not be able to fulfill all requests.
Outside the Southern California area? The EPDC operates in all 50 states. To find an EPDC specialist near you, see https://www.txstate-epdc.net/nasa-centers/.
The Educator Professional Development Collaborative (EPDC) is managed by Texas State University as part of the NASA Office of Education. A free service for K-12 educators nationwide, the EPDC connects educators with the classroom tools and resources they need to foster students’ passion for careers in STEM and produce the next generation of scientists and engineers.
