Applications for the fellowships are being solicited from professional science educators including classroom teachers, curriculum specialists and museum or science center staff, who would be eligible for selection and training in April 1999. Those selected will receive educator training about the mission and its scientific objectives. Cassini Educator fellows will participate in workshops at JPL, train other educators within the geographic area, and field-test classroom materials relating to the mission and planetary science in general. Applicants must be U.S. citizens, and applications are due Feb. 19, 1999.
The fellowships are part of Cassini's education and public outreach program, which, with the Challenger Center space education organization, is implementing a nationwide teacher training initiative and developing educational modules targeted at grades 5 through 8. The Cassini Educator Fellows will reflect a geographically and institutionally diverse mix of presenters from a variety of learning environments such as science centers and museums, school districts, universities and educational organizations.
The training will provide participants with a unique opportunity to interact with Cassini program scientists and engineers. Fellows must commit to conducting a minimum of two educator training workshops per year and to sharing evaluation information from those workshops with the Cassini Program and Challenger Center.
More information about the fellowships is available online at the following URL:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/what/cassinifellow.html .
Applications are available online at:
http://www.challenger.org/fellows/cassini/ .
For more information, contact Traci Barnett at the Challenger Center by e-mail at tbarnett@challenger.org, or call (703) 683-9740.
JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.
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