Space+Networking

One of the goals of the NASA Earth and Space courses is to involve students in **"The NASA Family".** This means helping them become aware of NASA research and exploration, and of other NASA opportunities such as summer programs, challenges and competitions. NASA Earth & Space courses will establish a password protected web site for course students and the development team to share informations and to use as an extension of the course. Here are some items that will be posted by the development team:


 * NASA news items & neat images
 * NASA opportunities for students
 * Sky events to observe
 * Discussion topics

I would like the site to have something new everyday as a way to keep students engaged.

The site will also be the course interface so will need two inter-related components and it must be clear what is an assignment and what is a general discussion topic.

//(maybe have a calendar of non-course-related opportunities, plus a calendar for course requirements)//
 * Example of competition to post:**

The RealWorld-InWorld NASA Engineering Design Challenge invites high school students to work cooperatively as engineers and scientists to solve real-world problems related to the James Webb Space Telescope.

In Phase 1 of this education initiative, students explore and design solutions to two real-world problems related to the James Webb Space Telescope. For this phase, participants work in teams of three-to-five students.

Final RealWorld project solutions from this first phase of the challenge are due on Dec. 15, 2010.

Teams who complete Phase 1 are then paired with participating college engineering students to begin Phase 2, the InWorld phase of the challenge. Working in a virtual world setting, each newly formed InWorld team uses 21st-century tools to refine designs and create 3-D models of the Webb telescope.

For more information about the challenge, visit http://www.nasarealworldinworld.org/.

Questions about this opportunity should be directed to RWIW@nianet.org.


 * Microgravity Contest**

http://spaceflightsystems.grc.nasa.gov/DIME.html

Engineering Design Challenge http://edc.nasa.gov/