NASAMEI2017

June 15, 2017 Today was an exciting day for today's workshop! We were certified to borrow Lunar Sample Disks to share with our students and the public! We also learned about Heliophysics and our Solar System.  We explored classroom activities to share with our students, while creating a sun cookie and craft.

Today we did nothing but have conference, after conference...after conference. It was exhausting absorbing this information all day long but it was also entertaining and hands on. We did alot of collaboration and group work with new people (they assigned us seats so they split us up) Our first activity was about packing for a long trip to Mars. Our mission was to determine what items our group will take to Mars and fit them in a huge box.  The second activity was planning a mission to Mars and we had 300$ to design a rocket that made sense and fit all the unknown criteria (my group ended up buying a mechanical arm but didn't have a rover to put it on.. oops) Then we had lunch in building 3 which they said we'd probably never enter again so that was cool. After lunch we had a video conference with Karyn Long about the Hidden Figures movie and the females who made history. The rest of the afternoon was spent designing and building a satellite using cheap,...

Today at NASA MEI, we discussed the engineering process involved when designing a satellite mission. In this case, our team created a rocket in hopes to deploy a satellite to the red planet.  We used basic household items and crafts such as, aluminum foil, cupcake liners, paper clips, scotch tape, pipe cleaners and fabric buttons. Through many trials, we tested our rockets deployment and ultimately came up with our grand design Hiccup.

7:30AM We got to the Johnson Space Center bright and early and had our orientation (I don't know why we didn't have it on the first day?) 8:30AM After our orientation we lined up so we can go on a tram tour. It was pretty cool (they even let us know the amount of stairs we were going up, it was 80 something) and we saw the Apollo Mission Control room. Our next stop on the tour was the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility. 9:45 Once the tour was over we began our scavenger hunt/touring the museum exhibits. 12:30 At this time we started our workshops until 5PM. We took a virtual tour of the ISS and did a hands on activity. These were super  fun and exciting!

Day one: Spirit day This day was awesome! It was a privilege to be here and represent TAMUCC. It was intro day where we gave out our 50 pieces of memorabilia to other participants that represent who we are and where we come from. TBH, I was a little disappointed  in the other teams memorabilia only because it lacked creativity.  What I would recommend to future participants  is to go above and beyond. We are teachers/ future teachers, be creativity don't do the bRewas the absolute best part of the day! My mind was blown. Seeing the huge pool and the underwater station was breathe taking. So far this has been my favorite portion of the trip. I will post pics later.

Today we have started out with a tram tour of the facility.  Fascinating!  To see the control room from the movie Apollo 13 was pretty cool.  Ron Howard is such an amazing director and you can make direction connections between the movie and the experience of being in the space of the JSC. The ladies will be posting pictures very soon!