NASA Essay Contest: To the Moons!
Posted on February 11th, 2013 by Mary Lord
NASA is hosting an essay contest for students in grades 5 to 12 to help choose whether the next big mission to the outer solar system should go to Saturn’s moon, Titan, or to Jupiter’s moon, Europa. The deadline for submissions is February 28.
Filed under: Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, K-12 Outreach Programs | Comment »
Tags: Astrobiology, Competitions for Students, Contest, Essay Contest, Europa, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, moons, NASA, Solar System, space experiments, space exploration, Titan
In this activity, student teams learn about construction and engineering design by building a domed structure with an internal frame that is strong enough to support 120 grams of coins or candy on top. They present their domes to the class and complete reflections on the lessons learned.
How will humans use science and technology to explore space, and what mysteries will we uncover? What scientific and technological tools must we create to explore the solar system and beyond? NASA’s second international Humans in Space Art asks students ages 10 – 18 to answer those questions through art. The deadline for submitting musical, literary, visual, or video artwork is midnight U.S. Central Standard Time, October 21, 2012.
In this lesson, students in grades 3 to 12 explore how engineers incorporate the latest materials and manufacturing techniques to improve the performance of sports equipment by constructing a functional racquet out of everyday materials that can volley against another team’s racquet at least six times.
Registration has opened for the 2012-2013 Real World Design Challenge (RWDC), an annual national competition in which teams of high school students in grades 9 to 12 work on real-world engineering challenges. Participating teachers receive $1 million in professional engineering software, plus training, curriculum materials, and access to mentors.
In this service-learning activity, teams of students in grades 10-12 learn the basic principles of fluid dynamics by designing and testing a prototype system to pipe water from a storage tank to a Tippy Tap hand-washing station similar to inexpensive homemade devices used extensively in the developing world.
In this activity, students in grades 7-9 explore the sound-dampening capability of materials by designing and prototyping model sound booths. They learn about how sound is reflected and absorbed, and how it travels through various materials, providing an overview of sound dampening propagation in the context of engineering.
In this activity, students in grades 4 – 12 will do math like a computer. They will learn the basics of binary number systems by writing and then counting on their hands, and use their knowledge to decode numbers and letters.
In this hands-on activity designed to teach chemical-engineering principles to freshman engineering students at Rowan University, teams of high school students will melt chocolate and coat commercially available cookies, then perform several measurements and calculations. They then will write a lab report that includes nutritional labeling and recommendations for improving the chocolate-coating process.
