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The Galileo team answers your questions
Browsing answers to questions already asked
An archive of questions asked and answered previously is being maintained.
This archive is readily available.
Asking the Galileo team your questions
The capability to send Email questions to the men and women of the Galileo
team was available from mid-February through April 6, 1997. This page described
some guidelines and procedures for the process.
K-12 students and teachers can Email questions to researchers, engineers
and support staff. This interaction will be supported by a "Smart Filter"
which protects the professional from Internet overload by acting as a
buffer. The actual Email addresses of these experts will remain unlisted.
Also, repetitive questions will be answered from an accumulating database
of replies; thus the valued interaction with the experts will be saved
for original questions.
Tips for asking good questions
Each and every expert is excited about connecting with classrooms. But it
is important to remember that the time and energy of these researchers is
extremely valuable. If possible, please review the materials available online
to gain an overall understanding of the basics.It would be best
to ask questions that are not easily answered elsewhere. For
example, "What does the Galileo spacecraft do?" would not be an appropriate
question.
We recognize that this creates a gray area about whether or not a question
is appropriate. Simply use your best judgment. Since the main idea is
to excite students about the wonders of science and research, please err
on the side of having the students participate. If you are not sure whether
or not to send a question, send it.
Ideally, the act of sending questions will further engage the student
in their learning. It may help to think back to an early stage of development
when the 3 year old learns that repeating the word "why" can get parents
to do most of the work in a conversation The wise parent will try to get
child involvement by asking "why do you want to know?". The same is true
in the classroom. Teachers might want to help students to learn to ask
good questions. Here are three questions the students might ask themselves
as they submit their questions:
What do I want to know?
Is this information to be found in a resource I could easily check (such
as a school encyclopedia)?
Why do I want to know it? ("What will I do with the information?" or "How
will I use what I learn?")
The last question is the most interesting. Student reflection on why they
want to know something is a very valuable learning experience.
One question per message
If you or your class have several questions which are unrelated, we ask
that you please send each unrelated question in a separate Email message
rather than as one message with many different questions. While this may
be inconvenient, it is important because it will help us to keep track of
the questions and ensure that no question remains unanswered. Messages that
do not follow this request will be unnecessarily delayed as we go through
the extra step of splitting up the messages ourselves.
Twenty question limit
Any individual teacher is limited to submitting a total of twenty (20) questions
during the life of the project. Hopefully this will encourage more classroom
discussion about what students want to know and will lead to research done
before asking questions.
Searching question/answer pairs
A capability to search for
interesting question/answer pairs is also available. The system relies on
the user choosing one or more keywords related to their interest. Every
existing question/answer pair will be searched to see if it contains the
keywords.
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