Exploration through Navigation
Challenge Welcome to the Fall 2008
NASA Quest Challenge!
Explore Earth and Space Navigation Part I
Charting a Course at Sea
During this Challenge, students will first
be tasked to chart a course from the Big Island of Hawai’i
to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) using ocean navigation skills that
were used in early Polynesian exploration. Then, in Part
II of the Challenge, students will be tasked to chart a course
from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida to one of
the lunar poles using navigation skills appropriate for outer
space. For both tasks, students will submit their idea (as a class)
to NASA for experts to review. At the end of the Challenge, students
will be asked to compare and contrast methods of navigating on
Earth (at sea) and in space. For both parts of the Challenge,
the essential question that will keep students on task will be “How
do you stay on course?”
See the growing calendar of events
below for
planning purposes. Weekly challenge questions will be posed for 5 -
8th grade students to compete for prizes to deliver the best answer
to us first. Outside of the classroom, students will track the star
Enif and as results are posted from around the world students, will
determine if there is a relationship between the latitude of the observation
site and the star’s
altitude at its upper culmination.
Calendar of Events
Registered
Yet? Don't miss out on any part of this adventure!
Fall
-- PART 1: Charting a Course by Sea (Educator
Guide Available to Registered Teachers)
Watch the archive of this informative webcast
designed to help you in your design.
Meet Kälepa Baybayan Polynesian
Captain and Navigator of Hawaiian deep-sea voyaging canoes
and learn more about this art that lives on.
Join us as experts comment on
your designs, including:
Remarks from our expert panel,
Astronomical content from Astronomer
Brian Day, and
Overall route and special considerations from Navigator Kälepa
Baybayan
Kälepa shares with us his trip and commends our students
for taking on "the
most difficult challenge that (he) and any of (his) voyaging
companions have faced"
Brian also gives us a preview of Part 2 of this Challenge: Charting
a Course to the Moon!
December
12
We value your comments! After
you have watched the Webcast, we would appreciate your feedback
at Teacher
Post-Challenge Survey (online) -- Due by end of calendar year.
Certificates will be made available to those who have completed
the challenge.
Winter/Spring
-- Part 2: Space Navigation (More Information Coming Soon!)