Middle school students to talk to space station crew

September 30, 2003

Julie Burt
Johnson Space Center, Houston, Tex.
(Phone: 281-483-5111)



Release: #J03-98

MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS TO TALK TO SPACE STATION CREW

NASA hopes to answer students' age-old question "When am I ever going to use
this information?" by matching up middle school students with the ultimate
in role models - two space pioneers living in an orbiting laboratory 240
miles above the Earth.

On Oct. 2, Travis Middle School in Port Lavaca, Texas, will be the site of a
chat between students and the crew of the International Space Station (ISS),
Commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA ISS Science Officer Ed Lu. Eight hundred
participants will gather for the event, with more than 3,400 middle school
teachers and students in Texas and Mississippi listening in. The event will
be shown on NASA TV at 2 p.m. CDT.

The event is all part of NASA's Middle School Aerospace Scholars Program.
The program is funded by the State of Texas and administered by NASA Johnson
Space Center (JSC) in Houston. Middle School teachers gather for a one-week
professional development workshop at JSC in Houston, which includes
behind-the-scenes tours, briefings with scientists, engineers, and
astronauts, and instruction on using online NASA resources. The teachers
take back what they learn to integrate NASA instructional materials into
their classroom curriculum.

The live interaction between the orbiting crew and the students will enhance
the work these teachers completed at JSC. Students will see the results of
studying math and science -- that it could lead them to helping humans
explore and develop space or perhaps to traveling beyond the Earth's
atmosphere themselves.

NASA TV is available on AMC-9, transponder 9C, C-Band, at 85 degrees west
longitude. The frequency is 3880.0 MHz. Polarization is vertical, and audio
is monaural at 6.80 MHz. For information about NASA TV on the Internet,
visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

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Jacques :-)

Editor: www.spacepatches.info