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Charleston Can
Do teachers and students have consistently demonstrated the use of cutting edge technology
in teacher education, student projects, and teacher/student presentations at regional,
national, and international conferences. Throughout the GeoCam, KidSat, and EarthKAM
projects, NASA has drawn on Charleston educators for leadership roles in all of these
projects.
The GeoCam project was the creative development of the Charleston
County School District Can Do Project supported by its education partnerships with the
Medical University of South Carolina and the College of Charleston. There were many
lessons learned from that project and later expanded in the NASA sponsored KidSat and
EarthKAM projects. GeoCam II will apply these experiences and build on them. Charleston
Can Do teachers have benefited from their ongoing involvement in every one of these
missions.
GeoCam developed the concept of a student-run mission control room.
This idea evolved and grew more as the teachers and students built a team approach. The
central idea that GeoCam promoted was that students would be running the mission
operations center using sophisticated (pre-Internet) technology and teachers would support
them as advisors and mentors. The idea that students in middle and high school would be
running an active control room interacting with the Shuttle crew was an original and
innovative idea in educational methodology. Learning to work cohesively with students from
other schools and regions was another challenge to overcome. |
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| Developing job descriptions for the various
positions and training students in the job assignments solved the problem. Variations on
this model have been used for all student mission control rooms that followed. Major
technology changes, especially the development of the Internet, have changed the
operational patterns and allowed for the near real-time delivery of the images. The
primary personnel functions have remained constant. The decision to have a central student
mission control room with students from participating schools assuming specific
responsibilities for a specified shift was one of the early innovations. The specialist
positions have been adapted at every subsequent student mission control room. This model
allowed for more than 180 students to be active in the mission control room over a period
of eight days in groups of 20 to 30. Parents and teachers have been both surprised and
pleased by the level of activity and the good order in which students have been able to
perform useful targeting in a limited amount of time. It was found that advanced teacher
education and practice mission simulations were essential to build the confidence of
everyone and test the model before the mission. This process is now part of all student
mission control rooms. Teachers and students shared input about how to improve the control
room and changes were made as needed. Many students wrote in journals about the positive
feelings from the mission control room. A student from Buist Academy wrote that this was
real and whatever target was selected was their own responsibility. Students felt very
empowered and as a consequence, carefully prepared for and thoughtfully executed their
mission responsibilities. In this atmosphere, students often performed at levels beyond
their teachers’, their parents’, and even their own expectations. They left the
experience with not only new skills but with a vastly improved self-confidence and self
image. |
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The NASA KidSat project selected Can Do
teachers to participate as lead teachers to both write and pilot the project for three
years. The idea of individual mission control rooms using the latest computer technology,
the new Internet in 1994, was tried in schools. The push to get schools connected to the
Internet (almost all were not) was considered innovative at the time. These schools were
on the leading edge of image technology use in the classroom. Some schools liked the
control they had over the image selection and the event atmosphere that an active mission
created in the whole school. But in other schools, because not all students in a school
were involved in the project, some teachers and principals found it disruptive. KidSat
demonstrated a need to develop a model that fits the school district technology resources
and individual principals' comfort zones. As a result, the follow-up EarthKAM project has
been experimenting with a consolidated regional control room. GeoCam II suggests a
flexible model that will use a central control room and partner schools working together.
Individual schools that wish to have a control room site could use the Internet to send
requests to the regional control center. This multi-layered model will allow schools and
district to choose the form of participation that best meets their individual needs. |
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| The most educationally important outcome has
been the use of Earth image technology by students to try to answer science related
questions. Lessons were developed from the original GeoCam images that became the models
for future lessons in the KidSat and EarthKAM projects. Lessons were developed by
Charleston County educators to teach other teachers and students how to relate images,
maps, and science questions. As an example, students in the first KidSat project used
images to study the Rio Xingu, a river in Brazil. These student-scientists used the 1996
KidSat mission images, 1976 maps, and computer technology to demonstrate river changes.
Teachers and students presented these findings at national and international conferences.
Other project included exploration of small islands in the Pacific Ocean, changes in the
size of the Dead Sea, exploration of coastal changes, and many other examples. Teachers
have taught students to look beyond their books and library. They have presented an
opportunity for students to take personal interest in areas of science that they choose to
explore and to teach them to use new tools to achieve their personal research goals. The
role of education in the GeoCam II project is one that will be felt in classes across the
country. The placing of the GeoCam II cameras on the International Space Station will
offer the chance for multispectral images to be selected and used by students in every
classroom. The GeoCam II project will continue to offer students the opportunity to
participate in science in a very real way while still having fun. |
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