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  Skokie Public Library's February STEAM Engines club, featuring STEAM learning and hands-on activity for kindergarten through second graders, focused on super cool retired scientist Emmett Chappelle. Chappelle had an exciting and varied career, including working with NASA to support their flight initiatives. Perhaps most prominently, he was involved with the Viking 1, the first spacecraft to successfully land on Mars! For the purposes of our program, however, we chose to focus on his work as an exobiologist. Don’t know what that is? We didn’t either! The kids had fun guessing, though. Turns out it’s perhaps not as heart-racingly thrilling as [...]

by Stephanie Vierow-Fields STAR Net’s Summer of Space in partnership with the Collaborative Summer Learning Program’s A Universe of Stories, invites libraries to participate in a national STEM challenge designed for the hard to reach tween/teen age group. The Northwest Earth and Space Science Pipeline (at the Univ. of Washington, in Seattle) is the lead organization.   As part of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, the ANGLeS (Apollo Next Giant Leap Student) Challenge invites teams from fifth grade to high school seniors to build a replica of the lunar lander and use a remote-controlled Blue Heron drone to [...]

by Emma Marcucci and Holly Ryer, Space Telescope Science Institute Research shows that out-of-school-time programs play an important role in supporting learning experiences and shaping youth identity in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). Young learners (particularly girls) who participate in STEM activities outside of school are more likely to say they will pursue STEM subjects later in their education. In addition, there is strong evidence that inquiry-based approaches benefit both individual and collective learning and support the development of twenty-first century skills. These approaches encourage youth to solve complex problems, work in teams, communicate findings, and apply knowledge to novel [...]

by Stephanie Vierow-Fields, Education Coordinator at the Space Science Institute As we gear up for the Universe of Stories summer learning event and NASA’s Apollo 11 50th anniversary, NASA@ My Library and the Northwest Earth and Space Science Pipeline are collaborating to promote a unique engineering challenge from the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, offering students the chance to land on the “Moon”.  Well, a map of the Moon at least.  A Lego Mindstorms robot, with a plastic astronaut strapped to the front, approaches the lunar lander. Credit: Dennis Wise/University of Washington With the advent of new and [...]

The Collaborative Summer Library Program (CSLP), the STAR Library Network (STAR Net) with its NASA@ My Library program, and NASA are working together on a virtual launch pad filled with numerous STEM resources that libraries can utilize for their celebration of space exploration as part the 2019 “A Universe of Stories” summer learning event. STAR Net’s "Summer of Space" website provides your library with valuable tools to help your summer learning program achieve great success. Public Libraries can register and become eligible to receive additional STEM resources (including NASA's "Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters" tactile book), build partnerships between libraries, enter to [...]

Please complete application form by Jan 25, 2019 The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) is seeking 3-4 U.S. libraries that are willing to review and pilot test resources and activities related to NASA’s GLOBE Observer citizen science program. Citizen science – also called volunteer science – engages the public in science investigations.  NASA’s GLOBE Observer free mobile app enables citizen scientists of all ages to contribute to NASA science by taking photos and submitting observations of clouds, mosquito habitats, and land cover (see: http://observer.globe.gov). The GLOBE Observer team has also been developing several programming resources (e.g., hands-on activities, arts and [...]

Join Us for this Live Webcast Event! BLOG UPDATE: Click here for a recording of the live webcast event. The tumultuous year of 1968 saw escalation of war, riots in the streets, and assassinations of leaders. During this time of upheaval back on Earth, NASA gave the world hope through its Apollo mission to the Moon. Apollo 8 was the first mission ever to take astronauts to a world beyond Earth. Crew members James Lovell, Frank Borman and Bill Anders launched on Dec. 21, 1968, and reached lunar orbit three days later, on Christmas Eve. The unexpected view of our world [...]