Community Outreach by SESDA II Staff
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Family Science Night: How Big? How Old? How Far?
SESDA II staff members organized and ran the first Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) sponsored Family Science Night at the Goddard Visitor Center on November 9th. The program is designed for middle school students and their families. During the two hour event, participants explored our universe through fun hands-on activities where they modeled the universe and discovered how old and how far various objects in our universe are compared to us. The event was a complete success with rave evaluations from both adults and children. Participants commented on how they couldn't believe how much fun science could be and how nice it was to do something as a family that didn't involve TV, movies or game boys.
Upcoming Family Science Night Events
Where: Goddard Visitor Center, Explorer Drive, Greenbelt, MD
When: 6 to 8PM on Thursday: October 25, November 15, December 20, January 17, February 21, March 20, April 17 and May 15.
Admission: Free - registration required at http://sdoepo.gsfc.nasa.gov (click on "SDO for Families," then "Family Science Night") or call 301-286-0207 for more information. -
The Sojourn Center for Creative Learning at the John B. Cary Elementary School
SESDA II staff member Maurice Henderson became a partner with the John B. Cary Elementary School in Richmond, Virginia. It was Maurice's idea to turn their old caboose into a laboratory for learning for groups both in and out of the local school system. The caboose was donated to the school in 1984 as a small museum, but it sat unused for the past several years. Maurice worked for almost a year to bring the project to completion.
Maurice was joined by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and school Principal Brenda W. Phillips on Nov. 9, 2006 for the Sojourn Center's ribbon cutting ceremony. Students can monitor the environment of the caboose and its energy consumption. Maurice hopes to add solar panels to the laboratory, which now contains computers and displays on NASA sciences and exploration. -
Friend's Community School
SESDA II staff member Rob Baker volunteered to design and develop the Web site for the Friends Community School in College Park, Maryland. This included applying principles of information architecture and Web standards into the design of the new site. The result was a scalable site that the School's user community is excited about and will be able to work with for years to come. Here is a link to the site.
