NASA sends science lesson directly to Ridgedale classroom

MARION -- A Ridgedale Junior High School science teacher got some help from NASA on Monday as she talked about the moon and satellites.

Catherine Brennan, who teaches eighth-grade science, took advantage of a free program that lets students hear up-to-date information on NASA missions. The information is relayed by a certified teacher who works at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and speaks to classrooms through Skype, a software application that lets users make voice and video calls over the Internet.

Such learning is an example of how educators are using technology to help teach students more up-to-date information than would be available without such applications as Skype.

The lesson was "Mapping the Moon with WALL-E," an interactive project that also featured the Pixar-animated robot from the movie "WALL-E." Students took part in a quick experiment that taught them how NASA uses satellites to map the typography of the moon's surface.

Past that, they got an explainer on some of the newest of more than 60 science missions NASA currently has under way. That includes the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter circling the moon and its Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, which has helped produce some of the most precise topographical maps to date of the moon's cratered landscape.

"Before LRO, we actually knew the shape of Mars better than we know the shape of the moon, our nearest neighbor," John Keller, a deputy project scientist at the Goddard center, stated on NASA's website.

Such missions are in the news now but likely won't be in many textbooks yet.

"Science changes in this field quickly," Brennan said. "Textbooks are outdated within a year. I had to find an alternative resource."

She said NASA's educational programs have also helped her show students real-time images of the moon taken with the Hubble Space Telescope.

"I thought it was pretty cool," eighth-grader Monroe Britton said. "Not a lot of people can talk to NASA."

The lessons also introduce some of the technology being used to students who aspire to become scientists.

Eighth-grader Preston Elswick, who hopes some day to be an astro quantum physicist, said he was familiar with the missions but felt honored to get to hear directly from someone who works with NASA.