• iceberg
  • boy with flowers
  • checking water quality
  • planet eclipse
  • solarsystem model
  • rangitoto trees
  • kids with test tubes
  • kids with earth
  • snowy mountains
  • teens in physics class
  • Rainbow Clouds

    Refraction and diffraction of light through ice crystals in the clouds

  • Philippa On The Ice

    Philippa On The Ice Philippa Werry at an Antarctic research camp 2016

New Zealand Science Teacher

Science Curriculum/Scientific Literacy

Spaceward Bound is go

Science teachers have a unique professional development opportunity: to explore extreme environments with NASA researchers.

starsHow would your earth and space science students feel about working with a team of NASA scientists?

New Zealand teachers and their students have the chance to do field work with NASA planetary scientists next summer. Applications are now open for a Spaceward Bound expedition in January 2015.

Spaceward Bound is an educational programme developed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in the Silicon Valley, California. Its aim is to spark the next generation of space researchers by welcoming students and their teachers to participate in the exploration of extreme environments on Earth.

In what will be a unique and exciting professional development opportunity, New Zealand teachers will forge strong connections with top scientists and help to develop the programme for future expeditions.

Spaceward Bound Field Expeditions involve teachers in fieldwork, enabling them to return that authentic experience back to the classroom and to help them develop curriculum resources related to human exploration of remote and extreme environments.

These field expeditions take place all over the world, but in New Zealand, the programme will consist of six days of field work in the Rotorua/Taupo/Tongariro Plateau. These excursions will be augmented by talks with the expert scientists and hands-on lab work.

Interested teachers are encouraged to sign up here on the New Zealand Astrobiology website.

Detailed information about Spaceward Bound, including a proposed itinerary for the New Zealand expedition, can be found here.

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