Challenger center for space science education, terc, NASA's teaching from space program, lunar science institute, lunar quest program, my NASA data and earth observatory will partner to greatly expand…

Challenger center for space science education, terc, NASA's teaching from space program, lunar science institute, lunar quest program, my NASA data and earth observatory will partner to greatly expand the impact of challenger learning centers by developing the next generation of the "encounter earth" and "return to the moon" mission simulations and associated online activities. Operating on a new function-rich software engine currently in development, the missions will extend the reach of these innovative, immersive learning experiences from a traditional middle school audience to high school students and teachers. Moreover, all students will be able to fly enhanced simulated space missions to study the earth or the moon, even from remote locations, and teachers will have new, tailored classroom opportunities to engage them in earth and lunar science using NASA resources. A select group of challenger learning centers from our network of 46 centers across the nation, which are currently delivering customized high school missions and programs to high school teachers and students, will assist in the review and implementation of the missions and deliver associated teacher training workshops. This robust partnership will ensure that the new high school missions and classroom activities have strong educational and science content, measurable learning goals, and an evaluation well grounded in the learning outcomes. The project team will design the content and educational goals and objectives to attract, engage, and facilitate science, technology, engineering, and math (stem) learning for secondary students. This proposal falls under outcome/deliverable #2 for the can: "proposals incorporating products or services that utilize eeducation or education technology tools, or provide electronic dissemination of new or repurposed NASA content." the work funded by the project will: 1. Define key learning goals, including content knowledge, thinking skills, and affective elements for new participatory and immersive earth and lunar science activities for secondary students using NASA resources. 2. Design technology-based learning activities for high school earth and moon challenger learning center mission simulation. 3. Develop freely available online activities that include interactives, investigations, and classroom lessons that also support high school earth and moon challenger learning center mission simulations. 4. Specify connections between learning goals and stem education standards as well as links to existing NASA educational materials that support participatory earth and lunar science for secondary students. 5. In collaboration with the evaluator, develop tools for assessing teacher and student learning, directly keyed to the learning goals.