Education News & Blogs – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

With 180 lessons in our online catalog, you can explore Earth and space with us all year long. We show you how with this handy NASA-JPL school year calendar.

We just added the 180th lesson to our online catalog of standards-aligned STEM lessons, which means JPL Education now has a lesson for every day of the school year. To celebrate and help you make the year ahead stellar, we've put together this monthly calendar of upcoming NASA events along with links to our related lessons, Teachable Moments articles, and student projects you can use to engage students in STEM while they explore Earth and space with us all year long.

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August
September
October
November
December
January
February
March
April
May

August

The Voyagers Turn 45

The twin Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 on a journey to explore the outer planets and beyond – and they're still going. Now more than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from Earth in a region known as interstellar space, they're the most distant human-made objects in space.

Get a primer on these fascinating spacecraft from Teachable Moments, then use it as a jumping off point for lessons on the scale, size, and structure of our solar system and how we communicate with distant spacecraft.

Lessons & Resources:

September

Rendezvous with an Asteroid

A distant asteroid system 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth was the site of NASA's first attempt at redirecting an asteroid. On September 26, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, mission impacted the asteroid Dimorphos in an attempt to alter its speed and path around a larger asteroid known as Didymos. Dimorphos and Didymos do not pose a threat to Earth, which makes them a good proving ground for testing whether a similar technique could be used to defend Earth against potential impacts by hazardous asteroids in the future.

Get a primer on the DART mission and find related resources for the classroom in this article from our Teachable Moments series. Plus, explore our collection of standards-aligned lessons and activities all about asteroids to get students learning about different kinds of space rocks, geology, and meteoroid math.

Lessons & Resources:

A Closer Look at Europa

Just a few days later, on September 29, the Juno spacecraft that had been orbiting Jupiter since 2016 captured the closest views of Jupiter’s moon Europa in more than 20 years. The ice-covered moon is thought to contain a subsurface liquid-water ocean, making it an exciting new frontier in our search for life beyond Earth. NASA's Europa Clipper mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2024 is designed to study the moon in more detail. But until Europa Clipper arrives at the Jovian system in 2030, these observations from Juno are our best chance to get a closer look at this fascinating moon.

Learn more about Europa and why it is interesting to scientists in this talk from our Teaching Space With NASA series featuring a Europa Clipper mission scientist. Then, explore our Ocean Worlds Lesson Collection for ideas on making classroom connections.

Lessons & Resources:

October

Celebrate Halloween Like a Space Explorer

The month of October is the perfect time to get students exploring our STEM activities with a Halloween twist. Students can learn how to carve a pumpkin like a JPL engineer, take a tour of mysterious locations throughout the solar system, and dig into the geology inside their Halloween candy.

October 31 is also JPL's 86th birthday, which makes October a great time to learn more about JPL history, including the team of female mathematicians known as "human computers" who performed some of the earliest spacecraft-tracking calculations and the Laboratory's role in launching the first U.S. space satellite.

Lessons & Resources:

November

Watch a Total Lunar Eclipse

Look up in the early morning hours of November 8 to watch one of the most stunning spectacles visible from Earth: a total lunar eclipse. This one will be viewable in North and South America, as well as Asia and Australia.

Learn more about lunar eclipses and how to watch them from our Teachable Moments series. Then, get students of all ages outside and observing the Moon with lessons on moon phases and the hows and whys of eclipses. Students can even build a Moon calendar so they always know when and where to look for the next eclipse.

Lessons & Resources:

Artemis Takes a Giant Leap

NASA is making plans to send astronauts back to the Moon for the first time since 1972 – this time to establish a sustainable presence and prepare for future human missions to Mars. The first major step is Artemis I, which is testing three key components required to send astronauts beyond the Moon: the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket and the ground systems at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The uncrewed Artemis I mission marks the first test of all three components at once.

Get your K-12 students following along with lessons in rocketry and what it takes to live in space. Plus, register to follow along with the mission with resources and updates from NASA's Office of STEM Engagement.

Lessons & Resources:

December

Satellite Launches on a Mission to Follow the Water

As crucial as water is to human life, did you know that no one has ever completed a global survey of Earth’s surface water? That is about to change with the launch of the SWOT mission. SWOT, which stands for Surface Water Ocean Topography, will use a state-of-the-art radar to measure the elevation of water in major lakes, rivers, wetlands, and reservoirs. It will also provide an unprecedented level of detail on the ocean surface. This data will help scientists track how these bodies of water are changing over time and improve weather and climate models.

Engage your students in learning about Earth’s water budget and how we monitor Earth from space with these lessons. And be sure to check out our Teachable Moments article for more about the SWOT mission and the science of our changing climate.

Prepare for the Science Fair

Before you know it, it'll be science fair time. Avoid the stress of science fair prep by getting students organized and thinking about their projects before the winter recess. Start by watching our video series How to Do a Science Fair Project. A scientist and an engineer from JPL walk your students through all the steps they will need to create an original science fair project by observing the world around them and asking questions. You can also explore our science fair starter pack of lessons and projects to get students generating ideas and thinking like scientists and engineers.

Lessons & Resources:

January

Explore STEM Careers

January is the time when many of us set goals for the year ahead, so it's the perfect month to get students exploring their career goals and opportunities in STEM. Students can learn more about careers in STEM and hear directly from scientists and engineers working on NASA missions in our Teaching Space video series. Meanwhile, our news page has more on what it takes to be a NASA astronaut and what it's like to be a JPL intern.

For students already in college and pursuing STEM degrees, now is the time to start exploring internship opportunities for the summer. The deadline for JPL summer internships is in March, so it's a good idea to refresh your resume and get your application started now. Learn how to stand out with this article on how to get an internship at JPL – which also includes advice for pre-college students.

Resources:

February

Mars Rover Celebrates 2-Year 'Landiversary'

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover celebrates its "landiversary" on February 18, which marks two years since the rover made its nail-biting descent on the Red Planet. The rover continues to explore Jezero Crater using science tools to analyze rocks and soil in search of signs of ancient microbial life. As of this writing, the rover has collected twelve rock core samples that will be sent to Earth by a future mission. Perseverance even witnessed a solar eclipse! Meanwhile, the Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which the rover deployed shortly after landing, has gone on to achieve feats of its own.

The Mission to Mars Student Challenge is a great way to get students of all ages exploring STEM and the Red Planet right along with the Perseverance rover. The challenge includes seven weeks of education content that can be customized for your classroom as well as education plans, expert talks, and resources from NASA.

Lessons & Resources:

March

Take On the Pi Day Challenge

Math teachers, pie-lovers, and pun-aficionados rejoice! March 14 is Pi Day, the annual celebration of the mathematical constant used throughout the STEM world – and especially for space exploration. This year's celebration brings the 10th installment of the NASA Pi Day Challenge, featuring four new illustrated math problems involving pi along with NASA missions and science.

Explore the full collection of pi math lessons, get students learning about how we use pi at NASA, and hear from a JPL engineer on how many decimals of pi we use for space exploration at the links below.

Lessons & Resources:

April

Celebrate Earth Day With NASA

You may not immediately think of Earth science when you think of NASA, but it's a big part of what we do. Earth Day on April 22 is a great time to explore Earth science with NASA, especially as new missions are taking to the skies to study the movements of dust, measure surface water across the planet, and track tiny land movements to better predict natural disasters.

Whether you want to focus on Earth’s surface and geology, climate change, extreme weather, or the water budget, we have an abundance of lessons, student projects and Teachable Moments to guide your way.

Lessons & Resources:

May

Summer Learning Adventures

As the school year comes to a close, send your students off on an adventure of summer learning with our do-it-yourself STEM projects. Additionally, our Learning Space With NASA at Home page and video series is a great resource for parents and families to help direct students' learning during out-of-school time.

Lessons & Resources:

TAGS: K-12 Education, Teachers, Students, Lessons, Resources, Projects, Events, Artemis, Voyager, DART, Asteroids, Europa, Ocean Worlds, Halloween, History, Earth, Climate, SWOT, Lunar Eclipse, Science Fair, Career Advice, Mars, Perseverance, Pi Day, Earth Day, Summer STEM

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kim Orr, Web Producer, NASA-JPL Education Office

Kim Orr is a web and content producer for the Education Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Her pastimes are laughing and going on Indiana Jones style adventures.

A “teachable moment” turned into a science fair win for an eighth-grader in Ontario, Canada, who based his project on a classroom activity from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Joshua Dove, 13, says he originally planned to explore the effects of storage temperature on golf balls until his grandfather, a space enthusiast and environmental consultant, saw a Caltech news story he had to share.

The story was about how an instrument called LIGO had detected gravitational waves for the first time, confirming a key piece of Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity. A web search led Dove to the JPL Education website and its “Dropping In With Gravitational Waves” activity, where he learned how to model the gravitational wave discovery using gelatin, a laser and marbles.

“Scientific models allow scientists, and students, to understand and explain phenomena that might be difficult or impossible to see,” said JPL Education Specialist Lyle Tavernier, who created the lesson for the website’s Teachable Moments blog. The blog, from the JPL Education Office, helps educators turn NASA- and JPL-related mission and science news into activities for the classroom. “While the LIGO detectors are located thousands of miles apart, this activity helps students understand gravitational waves using a model that fits on their desk!”

Josh Dove's science fair project on gravitational waves

Dove made modifications to the JPL Education activity for his science fair project, including using Legos to create a device that could drop a marble from different heights. He says figuring out how he needed to alter the design was his favorite part of the project.

With the help of his mom and grandfather plus a few tips from Tavernier, Dove was able to modify the lesson for his science fair project, which looked at whether the model would show consistent and predictable variations in the movement of the laser (gravitational waveform) depending on the energy released during a marble (black hole) collision.

“There was a trend that suggested the greater the weight of the impacting object, the larger the amplitude of the waveform,” said Dove, noting in his abstract that there were some inconsistencies in the results that would require more testing. He plans to do that this summer.

After presenting at his school’s science fair, Dove was asked by his teacher to enter the regional competition, where he won an award from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

Dove’s mom says the win was a big confidence booster for her son, who hopes to eventually work at NASA or become an inventor. “I would like to invent things that would help people affected by a natural disaster,” he said.

As far as advice for other science fair participants, Dove says, “Don't be upset if you don't get the results you are expecting, and don't be afraid to make modifications to your experiment.” In fact, he says it was working through the modifications that turned out to be his favorite part of the project.

How to Do a Science Fair Project – NASA-JPL Education

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His other advice: “Have a good mentor.” Or in Dove’s case, three. In addition to support from his grandfather and mom, it was Dove’s older sister, a science fair winner herself, who encouraged him to enter the regional competition. And thanks to the encouragement, Dove has no plans to stop now. “I would like to learn more about detecting other intergalactic phenomenon,” he said.

For tips on creating a winning science fair project, watch JPL Education’s “How to Do a Science Fair Project” video series.

Explore the gravitational waves activity and more standards-aligned STEM lessons for grades K-12 at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/teach

› Get tips for turning NASA mission and science news into lessons for the classroom.

The laboratory’s K-12 education initiatives are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the reach of NASA’s Office of Education, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.

TAGS: Science Fair, Gravitational Waves, STEM, Science, K-12, Models

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kim Orr, Web Producer, NASA-JPL Education Office

Kim Orr is a web and content producer for the Education Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Her pastimes are laughing and going on Indiana Jones style adventures.

More than 50 students from schools across Los Angeles County took their science experiments and engineering designs on the road on Tuesday for the opportunity to display their work during a science fair showcase at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Students as young as 11 filed into JPL's von Karman auditorium, eager to speak with professional scientists and engineers about their projects, which examined questions like: Could a solar oven be an effective cooking tool? How well does the human eye adjust to light? Is hagfish slime an efficient material for cleaning up oil spills? And how do different building bracing systems stand up in an earthquake?

JPL's chief scientist, Dan McCleese, who oversees the laboratory's research programs, met with students about their projects to offer feedback and encouragement.

"What you're working on today may end up being what you do for the rest of your life, and it's the greatest thing in the world," McCleese said during an opening address to the students. "When I was a freshman in high school, I started studying Mars, and I will admit I do that today."

David Seidel, manager of K-12 programs for JPL's Education Office, which organized the showcase, said it's statements like McCleese's that illustrate the value of science fairs for students.

"When students do a science project and they're properly mentored and they're doing real science, they're experiencing it. They're actually doing the science and engineering themselves and not just talking about it or following some sort of recipe," Seidel said. "So if you're looking for the next generation of scientists, let's get them in the habit of actually trying to do some science while they're still young."

While eighth-grader Sarah Garelick, 13, hasn't yet decided on her future career, her science fair project did give her the chance to investigate a personal interest.

"I was inspired by my dad," said Garelick, whose project looked at how the rate of glucose released into a pancreas would affect insulin levels. "He had his pancreas removed when I was little."

It was a similar motivation that drove sixth-grader Jeanie Benedict, 11, to create an elaborate evaporative cooling system for chinchillas -- a system she named "Chinchiller."

"Last summer during a Los Angeles heatwave, my pet chinchilla died of a heatstroke, so I wanted to create something that could have prevented it," said Benedict, whose project proved such a curiosity for passers-by that she barely had time to grab a slice of the free cake on offer to attendees.

"What stood out to me was the diversity of student projects that represented the diversity of student interests," said education specialist Ota Lutz, who created and starred in an online video series that walks students through the ins and outs of creating their own science fair projects. "Students do a lot of work to develop these science fair projects, so this event was a great opportunity for them to showcase their hard work and interact with professional scientists and engineers."

Enthusiasm for the event was so high that when participants, who had already presented their projects at the Los Angeles County Science Fair, were invited to register for the showcase, the available slots filled up within 24 hours.

"It was a big success," said Seidel. "I think it was eye-opening for a lot of the students and the chaperones to learn about the range of activities we have here at JPL and interact with people who are doing these things professionally."

For more events, activities and resources for students, provided by the JPL Education Office, visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/students/

The JPL Education Office provides formal and informal educators, parents and students with NASA science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) content, including resources, classroom activities and internship opportunities.

TAGS: Science Fair, Science, Engineering, High School, Middle School

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kim Orr, Web Producer, NASA-JPL Education Office

Kim Orr is a web and content producer for the Education Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Her pastimes are laughing and going on Indiana Jones style adventures.

If you're reading this, there's a good chance that you or someone you know has been in a science fair. Chances are that your project did not lead directly to a collaboration with a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and a paper in the professional journal Environmental Research Letters. Alice Zhai's project did.

The 16-year-old Zhai, who will be a senior this fall at La Cañada High School near JPL in southern California, and JPL research scientist Jonathan Jiang built on Zhai's science fair project, a statistical model of economic losses from hurricanes. They found that the common practice of using only wind speed to represent hurricanes in economic hurricane damage models is inadequate for large storms, such as 2012's Hurricane Sandy. Zhai and Jiang are the first to quantify the economic impacts of increasing hurricane size.

Hurricanes by the numbers

Analyzing 73 hurricanes from 1988 to the present, Zhai and Jiang found that a doubling in size, without a change in wind speed, more than quadruples the economic loss a hurricane causes. Tripling its size multiplies the loss by almost 20 times.

These numbers may be startling, but the idea that storm size matters is not. Experience has proven that not only size but the height of the storm surge, total rainfall and other characteristics affect a storm's impacts. So why do models include only wind speed? In the United States, we still classify hurricanes solely by their speed, using the Saffir-Simpson scale. The scale was devised before satellite observations made it possible to view a storm's size.

By comparison, there is no standardized scale of hurricane size. Different databases use different benchmarks -- for example, the distance from the storm's center to the location where the wind speed is either 34 or 64 nautical miles per hour, or knots. As part of their study, Zhai and Jiang recalibrated all storms to the 34-knot reference point.

From the science fair to the real world

Hurricane Sandy was the trigger for Zhai's 2013 project in the Los Angeles County Science Fair. "After seeing the devastation on TV and in the news, I was really curious," Zhai said. "I heard that it was an extremely destructive hurricane, and I noticed that it had a relatively low wind speed but an abnormally large size." Her project won third place in the Earth science division and an "outstanding achievement" award from the American Meteorological Society Los Angeles chapter.

Jiang met Zhai because he was judging other projects at the fair and stopped to see her poster. Her exceptional engagement and inquiring mind impressed him. As a long-time science fair judge, "I've met many high school students," he said. "Some people only have a high GPA because their parents put pressure on them, but Alice is genuinely interested. I put a lot of weight on people having curiosity."

Under Jiang's direction, Zhai kept working on her model to create publishable results, more than doubling the number of storms in the study and doing a more rigorous statistical analysis. The first time the authors submitted the paper, it was turned down. Some teenagers would have been crushed, but not Zhai. "Being rejected wasn't too terrible, because the reviewers' comments were encouraging," she said. "It motivated me to keep going with the project." They modified the paper and resubmitted it to the journal successfully.

Jiang encouraged Zhai to apply for an internship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena and then convinced her adviser there, Yuk Yung, to allow Zhai to expand her hurricane work at JPL this summer. She is improving their hurricane loss model by adding factors such as storm duration and regional economic wealth and using more accurate data on hurricane size based on measurements from NASA's QuikScat satellite.

Zhai is the youngest person by far in Jiang's group, but she's treated no differently than the postdoctoral fellows. "Sometimes I'm very picky, but Alice has never complained," Jiang said. In fact, she appears to be thriving. "I didn't know that my work could actually be applied to a big, real-world problem," she said. "That's kind of unbelievable. Working in a professional setting opened my mind about science. Before this experience, I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but now I want to pursue a math and science career."

The paper is available online at: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/6/064019/

Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Learn more about JPL internships and fellowships

TAGS: Women in STEM, Earth, Hurricanes, Science Fair, Internships & Fellowships, High School, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Women at NASA

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carol Rasmussen, Communicator, NASA Earth Science News Team

Carol Rasmussen covers Earth science news for NASA. Media inquiries related to JPL Earth missions and Earth science, can be directed to: Alan Buis, 818-354-0474, Alan.Buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Stay Connected

August

The Voyagers Turn 45

Voyager Lessons for Educators

Voyager Activities for Students

The Farthest Operating Spacecraft, Voyagers 1 and 2, Still Exploring

Then There Were Two: Voyager 2 Reaches Interstellar Space

September

Rendezvous with an Asteroid

The Science Behind NASA's First Attempt at Redirecting an Asteroid

Asteroids Lessons for Educators

Asteroids Actvities for Students

A Closer Look at Europa

Ocean Worlds Lessons for Educators

Ocean Worlds Actvities for Students

Teaching Space With NASA – Robotic Oceanographers

October

Celebrate Halloween Like a Space Explorer

Halloween Actvities for Students

Pumpkin Stencils

When Computers Were Human

Explorer 1 Anniversary Marks 60 Years of Science in Space

November

Watch a Total Lunar Eclipse

How to Watch a Total Lunar Eclipse and Get Students Observing the Moon

Moon Lessons for Educators

Moon Activities for Students

Artemis Takes a Giant Leap

Artemis Lessons for Educators

Artemis Activities for Students

Join NASA Online for Artemis I

Artemis Toolkit

Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of NASA's Apollo Moon Landing

December

Satellite Launches on a Mission to Follow the Water

NASA Mission Takes a Deep Dive Into Earth's Surface Water

SWOT Lessons for Educators

SWOT Actvities for Students

Prepare for the Science Fair

How to Do a Science Fair Project

Science Fair Lessons for Educators

Science Fair Activities for Students

January

Explore STEM Careers

Teaching Space With NASA

Career Guidance

Meet JPL Interns

JPL Internships and Fellowships

JPL Jobs: Opportunities for Students

NASA Internships

February

Mars Rover Celebrates 2-Year 'Landiversary'

Mission to Mars Student Challenge

NASA's Perseverance Rover Lands on Mars

March

Take On the Pi Day Challenge

10 Years of NASA's Pi Day Challenge

Pi in the Sky Lessons

NASA Pi Day Challenge

How Many Decimals of Pi Do We Really Need?

18 Ways NASA Uses Pi

April

Celebrate Earth Day With NASA

Earth Lessons for Educators

Earth Activities for Students

Climate Change Collection

May

Summer Learning Adventures

Summer Activities for Students

Learning Space With NASA