Alaska Space Grant Program

Pre-College Programs

The Alaska Space Grant Program continues to sponsor a broad spectrum of activities to enhance precollege education.  Our primary objective is to help Alaska teachers to incorporate aerospace-related curriculum enhancement materials in their classrooms. 

Maintain a contact database of teachers in Alaska that are interested in aerospace curriculum enhancement materials. This database was initially compiled by contacting every principal in Alaska and requesting him or her to suggest the names of teachers at their schools that might be interested in this topic. We continue to update the list as new teachers express interest in being included. This database of physical addresses is used to disseminate curriculum enhancement materials and information on training opportunities. Teachers with email addresses are invited to subscribe to our listserv, which we use to send out announcements concerning curriculum enhancement materials and training opportunities.

Maintain Online Alaska Teacher Resource Manual (ATRM) This project began in 1992 with an ASGP fellowship award to a student in the School of Education at UAF to compile a hardcopy resource book of aerospace resources in Alaska. When it was time to update this resource book in 1995, the online ATRM was created so that the manual could be updated continuously. One of its most important components is a listing of teachers in Alaska and their specific interests concerning aerospace curriculum.

Facilitate the distribution of curriculum enhancement materials such as PC’s in Space and provide tours and presentations on ASGP activities (e.g., the Alaska Student Rocket Project) to students and classrooms around Alaska. Students receiving ASGP fellowships have made many of these presentations.

Sponsor science fair awards for the best space-oriented projects at the Fairbanks North Star Borough K-8 Science Fair.

 

Identified and sponsored a team of four teachers to attend the NEW-AI (NASA Education Workshop for American Indians) workshop at NASA Ames in the summer 1999.

Small grant for two ASGP Affiliates, Alaska Pacific University faculty and students, staff members from The Imaginarium, to team to offer two days of instruction and activity using NASA materials and a portable STARLAB.  A community evening allowed all village members an opportunity to participate. (Spring 1999)
Travel grants for Alaska teachers to attend International Space Station teacher workshops sponsored by the Johnson Space Center.  Staff members from The Imaginarium accompanied these teachers.  (97-Present)

Small grants to APU to enhance the NASA Regional Education Resource Center on the APU campus, including the dissemination of curriculum enhancement materials to teachers throughout Alaska, and training the teachers on how to use these materials to address national and state standards for science and mathematics. (97-Present)

Small grant to The Imaginarium Science Discovery Center to expand the STARLAB training program. (98-Present)

Sponsor one-week summer teacher workshops at UAF on Rocket Science, Aurora, Science, and Remote Sensing (‘97 to present)

.Provide small grants to hold GLOBE workshops in Fairbanks (‘97).

Travel grants for Alaska teachers to attend the LiftOff teacher workshops coordinated by Texas Space Grant Consortium (’96 and ’97).

Travel grant to attend Citizen Explorer teacher workshops hosted by Colorado Space Grant (‘98). This workshop was attended by a teacher from rural Alaska and the ASGP affiliate director at UAS, who will lead the effort to develop an outreach program in Alaska that involves the Citizen Explorer spacecraft. (1998)

Travel grants for 3 student-teacher teams to attend workshops on Mars MESUR program that were hosted by at NASA Ames Research Center.

Facilitated U.S. Space Foundation Workshop co-sponsored a workshop on Teaching With Space, which was delivered to a group of 30 teachers in the Fairbanks area.

 

 

Curriculum Enhancement Activities

 

Small grants to APU to develop ‘Kids Aerospace Kits’ for use in rural Alaska, and develop the Lift Off outreach program for teachers on Kodiak Island, where the first commercial spaceport is nearing operational status.

Small grants to The Imaginarium Science Discovery Center to develop the Red Rover, Red Rover Mars exhibit and International Space Station Exhibits.

Sponsored five Lunar Prospector missions through the Moonlink program.  Targeted for middle and high schools, this program provided classrooms with real-time, hands-on involvement in live space exploration missions.

Sponsored six NEARlink missions. The NEARlink program supports Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission, which will be the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid in attempt to answer fundamental questions about their nature and origin.

Small grants to the UA Museum to develop a remote sensing exhibit and travelling education kits on Remote Sensing in Alaska and the Energetic Aurora (’95 and ‘97).

Small grant to develop space science kit for 5th grade students in the Anchorage.

Small grant to bring Alaska SAR Facility images into Alaska schools.

Small grant to expand curriculum at Anchorage West High School planetarium.

Small grant to publish Alaska Space Ventures Magazine for middle school students.

Project Zero Gravity (96).

 

Student programs

Funded graduate students working on Student Rocket Project to assist with Denali Science Camp.  K-8 students built and launched model rockets during these camps.

Alaska Space Academy began with a series of activities at Poker Flat Research Range that were offered in conjunction with summer camps sponsored by Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4H, Rural Alaska Honors Institute, etc. This became a one-week residence camp for middle school students 1993, serving a diverse group of 114 middle-school students from around the state (30% girls, 24% Alaska Natives). This was expanded to three one-week camps in 1994. ASGP contributed seed funding and logistical support from the ASGP Office to help initiate the Alaska Space Academy. ASGP involvement was subsequently redirected into teacher workshops on Rocket Science and Aurora Science in keeping with the directives from NASA HQ to emphasize teacher training instead of student programs. (1993/1994)