Back to School: Inspiring America's Youth
08.02.00
MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
Contact: Gabrielle Birchak-Birkman, JPL (818) 393-4359
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 2, 2000
How are America's teachers spending their summer? Forty-two educators are going back to school at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., equipping themselves with new methods and tools to teach other teachers, who in turn will teach
and interest their students in science and space exploration.
These educators from across the country include 22 who were recently selected as Solar System Educator Fellows. They are taking
part in the Solar System Educator Program Institute, sponsored by JPL, from August 2 through 5. The newly selected educators are
joining 20 previously selected educators at the institute.
The four-day institute will provide educators with the tools to inspire and excite young students in grades K-12. The educators will
learn techniques for training an additional 100 teachers in their state on how to use and incorporate current space missions data into
their curriculum to help kids learn about math and science. The goal is to make science a fun and fascinating topic for educators and
students.
Solar System Educators are comprised of current K-12 educators and others from the informal education community (museums,
science centers, planetariums, etc.) with a strong background in teaching science or math and experience in teacher training. These
educators travel cross-country for the opportunity to learn new techniques to engage other educators and students in the wonders
of scientific inquiry. Some of the educators work with sight-impaired and handicapped children and with underrepresented
minorities. So far this year, 77 educators have taken part in the Solar System Educator Program.
Space Explorers, Inc., DePere, Wisconsin, and the Virginia Space Grant Consortium, Hampton, Virginia, manage the Solar
System Educators Institute program for JPL. NASA/JPL missions participating in the institute include the Cassini mission to Saturn,
the Stardust and Deep Impact comet missions, the Galileo mission to Jupiter, the Mars Exploration Program, the Outer Planets/Solar
Probe Program and the Deep Space Network of ground- based antennas that communicate with spacecraft.
More information on the program is available at: http://www.ssep.org/
A list of individuals participating in the Solar System Educators Program can be found at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releasese/2000/sseducators.pdf.
The Solar System Educators Program is an element of NASA's Office of Space Science Education and Public Outreach Program,
NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
