Mentoring and inquirY using NASA Data for Atmospheric and earth science for Teachers and Amateurs (MY NASA DATA) is a project to enable K-12 teachers and students, as well as citizen scientists, to explore the large volumes of data that NASA collects about the Earth from space. A main goal of the MY NASA DATA project is to remove the barriers (such as file size and format, and complicated computer tools) that prevent the use of authentic NASA Earth System Science data in the classroom or by the interested public.

Students use scientific inquiry and math skills as they access and display microsets of the Earth System. A microset is a small amount of data – perhaps a single parameter for the whole globe; or a time series for a single location – extracted from a much larger data file. It is in a simple format, such as plain text, or accessible through a user-friendly tool. In addition to the microsets, the MY NASA DATA website offers a collection of lesson plans to help you get started with data exploration.

How to participate:
* Use the Live Access Server to discover data to help teach concepts in your curriculum
* Contribute a lesson plan you develop or submit student projects
* Interact in the e-Mentor network
* Give feedback on the website, lesson plans, data microsets and tools

Project owners + coordinators:
Dr. Lin Chambers, principal investigator
Carrie Phelps, web developer
Penny Oots, database administrator
Susan Moore, education specialist
Erica Alston, curriculum developer
Joyce Fischer, administrative assistant
Dennis Diones, web developer

To learn more, visit: http://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov

An open-source, photo-realistic, real-time, three-dimensional viewing of the solar system, the galaxy and the universe. Celestia is an easy to use, freely-distributed, multi-platform, open source, software package which has become a valuable tool for astronomy education. Used in homes, schools, museums and planetariums around the world, it also is used as a visualization tool by space mission designers. Versions are available for computers running Windows, Macintosh (Mac OS X) and Linux operating systems.

Although it is optimized for 3D astronomical visualization, Celestia can be used to display and explore other 3D environments, too. Celestia is an open-source project. As such, its source code is provided and is freely modifiable and redistributable as per the GNU Public License.

Project owners + coordinators:
Chris Laurel

To learn more and participate, visit:
http://shatters.net/celestia/

To stay up-to-date on this project:
• join shatters.net/forum
• explore en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia

A NASA education program that provides unique, high quality photographs of our planet taken by middle school students. Using the web to direct a digital camera on space flights and the International Space Station, select middle schools request images based upon their classroom investigations. Teachers, school administrators, and other youth organization leaders are allowed to sign up for ISS EarthKAM with their group of students.

The program enables students, teachers and the public to learn about Earth from the unique perspective of space. The image collection and accompanying learning guides and activities are extraordinary resources to support classes in Earth science, space science, geography, social studies, mathematics, communications and even art. Since the program’s inception in 1996, the ISS EarthKAM camera has flown on five Space Shuttle flights and taken almost 5000 images. Currently, the camera resides on the International Space Station.

Project owners + coordinators:
Karen Flammer, advisor
Liz Kain, curator

To learn more and register to participate as an educator, visit: http://earthkam.ucsd.edu/public/educators/registration.shtml