March 14, 2003

After a harsh winter, many welcome the light and warmth of the Sun, and NASA invites you to learn the many ways our Sun affects the Earth, from beautiful Northern Lights displays to catastrophic power outages.

The NASA Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) and Passport to Knowledge (P2K) jointly invite you to participate in Sun-Earth Day on March 18, 2003, Live From the Aurora. The public Sun-Earth days, now in their third year, aim to communicate the excitement of the fast-moving field of solar science and research into the Sun's effects on Earth. Thousands of participants at science museums, schools, and star parties in North America and Europe will talk with scientists, observe the Sun with telescopes connected to the internet, and learn about the Aurora (Northern and Southern Lights) and the Northern Peoples culture.

Nearly every NASA Center and NASA Educator Resource Center has planned an event for science teachers and students or for the public in conjunction with Sun-Earth Day. Specifically, more than 8,000 teachers have been invited to education workshops related to the science of the Sun-Earth Connection. NASA has Educator Resource Centers in every state. They are affiliated with the local NASA field center and provide NASA's educational materials and training to educators.

NASA Television also will air a series of programs about the Sun. Living With A Star, a solar science documentary, will air on March 17th. Viewing this will prepare the audience for the March 18 live broadcast, Live From the Aurora, which features real-time interaction between NASA researchers on location at Poker Flat Research Range, Alaska -- the world's premier site to study the aurora with sounding rockets -- and youngsters staying up late at night at the Maryland Science Center, Baltimore, Md.; Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland, Calif.; Fernbank Science Center, Atlanta, Ga., and The Imaginarium, Anchorage, Alaska.

Live From the Aurora a one hour interactive program will air nationally on participating PBS stations (check local listings) and on NASA Television from 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. EST on March 18th, and then repeats at 2:00 p.m., 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. (subject to preemption for agency events). During the broadcast and for one hour after (1:00 -3:00 p.m. EST) viewers can submit questions to a panel of NASA and University of Alaska/Geophysical Institute experts on the aurora by going to "On-Air" in the INTERACT section of the P2K/LIVE FROM THE AURORA website (see below.)

NASA's Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) translates and interprets the research results from NASA's solar science missions for educators and the public through training programs and educational products. P2K is the longest-running series of interactive learning adventures on public TV, and many of the shows in the series were funded by grants from NASA.

To learn more about Sun-Earth Day events in your community, visit:
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/sunearthday/

To register to be part of the question and answer session on March 18th, visit:
http://passporttoknowledge.com/sun/main.html

NASA television is available on amc2, transponder 9c at 85 degrees west longitude, with vertical polarization. Frequency is on 3880.0 megahertz, with audio on 6.8 megahertz.

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