When I was teaching, one of my students' favorite days was Career Day.

It was a big deal. The entire eighth-grade class researched careers that interested them and then created their own resumes. On Career Day, they dressed "professionally" and had job interviews with volunteers from the community.

The event was interdisciplinary, but it was mostly English- and social studies-related. I taught science and math. If I were still teaching, I would use the DIY Podcast: Exploration Careers module to involve my science classes.

The new module features NASA experts who make human exploration possible. We have highlighted each of them in previous modules. But in this one, the experts talk more about what they do on their jobs and how they came to that position. They describe some of the most interesting things they have done while working at NASA. Everyone has a story.

We also have clips from NASA human resource specialists. These are the people who choose students for internships and hire new employees. One of the specialists, Karen Burton, gives interview tips and hints on how to prepare now for a future career. The other, Chris Randall, is a former aerospace engineer who came to NASA as an intern. Now he is the director of the Pathways Program at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. The Pathways Program is the new internship program that has replaced the cooperative education program at NASA. Randall gives insight on the type of worker NASA will be looking for in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, fields.

DIY Podcast: Exploration Careers

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It's cool to watch the International Space Station fly overhead. The problem is you have to remember to check the sighting opportunities page to know when and if the station will be flying over your location.

Smartphones and tablet computers have apps that send alerts for station flyovers. But what if you don't have either?

Spot the Station to the rescue!

A new service that was announced on Nov. 2, the 12th anniversary of a human presence on the space station, alerts subscribers to station-sighting opportunities. Alerts are sent as an email or as a text message hours before the station flies over the subscriber’s neighborhood. Only flyovers that are high enough in the sky and last long enough to view are announced in the alert.

You and your students may sign up to have alerts sent to your phone or email. You may also want to create a multimedia project using one of our space-station-related DIY Podcast modules:

The last week of November and the first week of December will offer good sighting opportunities in many locations.

Spot the Station

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When we interviewed materials engineer Victoria (Torey) Long for the Failure Prevention module, she described the job that she and her teammates do in the failure analysis lab as NASA's version of detective work. In their interviews, Long and materials engineer Clara Wright both mentioned something about their childhoods
that probably made them natural-born failure analysts. Long's pastime was reading Nancy Drew mysteries. Wright liked to construct jigsaw puzzles.

If you have students who enjoy solving problems and mysteries, they probably will enjoy creating a multimedia project with the Failure Prevention module. They may also like reading the article   CSI: NASA. It is about the failure analysis lab at Kennedy Space Center.
The lab, nicknamed "Malfunction Junction," is the place where
mysteries are solved. The article intimates that the failure
analysis team is similar to TV's crime investigators. They investigate
mishaps with rocket hardware. If something goes wrong with a launch, this is the team to call.

The article also gives hints about the type of personalities that are better suited for this kind of work. Who knows? A future engineer   or failure analyst may be sitting in your classroom who never knew that this career choice is an option.

DIY Podcast: Failure Prevention

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Tune in to NASA TV on Nov. 15 at 11:35 a.m. EST to see students involved in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program talk live with astronauts Suni Williams and Kevin Ford who are on the International Space Station. 

SSEP is an educational research opportunity that allows students to design and send experiments to the space station through a partnership with NanoRacks, LLC. Williams has been involved in activating the latest round of SSEP experiments brought up on the Dragon spacecraft in early October.

The downlink, hosted at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., takes place during International Education Week. IEW is a joint initiative between the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education that celebrates the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide. Deputy Secretary of Education Tony Miller, NASM Director General Jack Dailey, Smithsonian Institute Assistant Secretary for Education and Access Claudine Brown, and the NASA Associate Administrator for Education Leland Melvin will participate in the program.

Watch the downlink; then build a multimedia project with the Do-It-Yourself Podcast module Space Station.

NASA TV 

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• Keeping Up With Carbon video
• The Ocean's Green Machines video
• Droplet and the Water Cycle game
• The Water Cycle article
• The Carbon Cycle article

You know how your students ask, "When am I ever going to use this?" It's a legitimate question. When they don't see a use for a concept, they won't believe it's worth learning. You may ask yourself the same question when you look at the DIY Podcast: Failure Prevention module. If you don't think the module has a practical application, you won't use it.

The Failure Prevention module can be used to support several standards and benchmarks of the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association's Standards for Technological Literacy:

Standard 2, Benchmark Q: Malfunctions of any part of a system may affect the function and quality of the system.

Standard 2, Benchmark DD: Quality control is a planned process to ensure that a product, service, or system meets established criteria.

Standard 7, Benchmark C: Many inventions and innovations have evolved using slow and methodical processes of tests and refinements.

Standard 7, Benchmark G: Most technological development has been evolutionary, the result of a series of refinements to a basic invention.

Standard 9, Benchmark E: Models are used to communicate and test design ideas and processes.

Standard 9, Benchmark H: Modeling, testing, evaluating, and modifying are used to transform ideas into practical solutions.

Standard 9, Benchmark K: A prototype is a working model used to test a design concept by making actual observations and necessary adjustments.

Standard 11 Benchmark K: Test and evaluate the design in relation to pre-established requirements, such as criteria and constraints, and refine as needed.

Standard 11 Benchmark O: Refine a design by using prototypes and modeling to ensure quality, efficiency, and productivity of the final product.

Standard 11 Benchmark P: Evaluate the design solution using conceptual, physical, and mathematical models at various intervals of the design process in order to check for proper design and to note areas where improvements are needed.

Standard 12 Benchmark M: Diagnose a system that is malfunctioning and use tools, materials, machines, and knowledge to repair it.

Standard 12 Benchmark N: Troubleshoot, analyze, and maintain systems to ensure safe and proper function and precision.

DIY Podcast: Failure Prevention

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