On Monday, December 1, 2003, at 10 a.m. EST, NASA will host the second in a series of six educational webcasts with the NASA Earth Crew. The Crew is an audience of more than 55,000 students and families from across the country that joined the new initiative through online registration since January.
The program, led by Dr. Ghassem Asrar, Associate Administrator for Earth Science at NASA and Gwendolyn Brown, NASA’s Chief Financial Officer, will be carried live on the Internet and on NASA TV.
Bianca Baker, a 14-year-old student, Earth Crew member and a Tree House detective on NASA SciFiles, an instructional TV series for elementary school students, is the webcast hostess. Brown and Asrar will answer questions submitted in advance by Earth Crew teams through NASA’s EdSpace Web site.
The theme of this year’s webcast series is “Explorers and Exploration.” Each installment of focuses on one of NASA’s six Enterprises: Aerospace Technology, Biological and Physical Research, Earth Science, Education, Space Flight, and Space Science. The webcasts take place every two months.
“It is exciting for us to give students and their families the opportunity to learn about what we do in each Enterprise at NASA,” said Dr. Adena Williams Loston, the agency’s Associate Administrator for Education. “We hope that through the Earth Crew webcast series, and other NASA education initiatives, students across the country will be inspired to explore careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” she said.
The Earth Crew, an initiative of NASA’s Educator Astronaut Program, is comprised of students, families and educators who receive updates about new projects, participate in exploration-related activities and webcasts. They also and have the opportunity to provide suggestions to NASA that may help in planning future missions.
“I’m looking forward to answering questions from Earth Crew members, and hopefully giving them a better idea of how NASA is using technology and research to improve life on Earth, something the agency has been doing ever since its birth 45 years ago,” remarked Asrar.
NASA TV is available on AMC-9, transponder 9C, C-Band, located at 85 degrees west longitude. The frequency is 3880.0 MHz. Polarization is vertical, and audio is monaural at 6.80 MHz.
To view the webcast on the Internet, or for information about the Educator Astronaut Program and the Earth Crew, visit:
http://edspace.nasa.gov