Teachers in Space, a STEM education organization connecting real space technologies to K-12 classrooms, is offering three summer workshops for teachers at locations across the country. One of them will be in Hutchinson, at the Cosmosphere. The other two workshops will be in Las Cruces, New Mexico and Brunswick, Maine.
Twenty-eight teachers from Cosmosphere’s LaunchLearning teacher fellowship will participate in the workshop at the Cosmosphere July 12-15.
During their time at the Cosmosphere, teachers will experience a simulated mission to low Earth orbit using Cosmosphere’s Astralis capsule-based simulator and mission control. They will also work with cutting-edge satellite technology provided by Teachers in Space.
“Along with the week-long workshop, we’re planning a school year long program, where teachers work with students to develop experiments they design and build,” said Teachers in Space Project Manager Noah Luogameno. “We then launch those on a rocket into space, on a suborbital or potentially orbital flight. We want to see teachers build flight-ready experiments that we will fly.”
Teachers in Space is providing an additional opportunity for two of Cosmosphere’s LaunchLearning teacher fellows to attend a live rocket launch. Heather Kincaid, of Wichita, and Lindsey Baribeau, of Rock Creek, will travel to Vandenberg Space Force Base for Firefly Aerospace’s launch of their Alpha rocket carrying Teachers in Space’s Serenity educational satellite.
“We designed our LaunchLearning teacher fellowship to provide the most relevant STEM education professional development by focusing on space technology and space exploration,” said JoAnna Strecker, Cosmosphere’s vice president for education. “Through Cosmosphere’s partnership with Teachers in Space, Kansas teachers will bring real world space research and technology to their classrooms.”
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The Cosmosphere International SciEd Center & Space Museum is a Smithsonian Affiliate. Located at 1100 North Plum in Hutchinson, KS, its collection includes U.S. space artifacts second only to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, and the largest collection of Russian space artifacts outside of Moscow. This unique collection allows the Cosmosphere to tell the story of the Space Race better than any museum in the world while offering fully immersive education experiences that meet Next Generation Science Standards. The Cosmosphere also features the Carey Digital Dome Theater, offering daily documentary showings, a digital Planetarium, Dr. Goddard’s Lab, where visitors experience live science demonstrations, and CosmoKids, an interactive STEM area for children accompanied by an adult.
Teachers in Space (TIS) ignites passion for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) via extraordinary space science experiences and industry connections for K-12 teachers and their students. www.TIS.org
