Review for:NASA

posted: on June 3, 2007 at 10:31PM

astronomy

moon and sun

fun way to start a lesson with a short video podcast

Honors or Advanced, Intro or Regular, Remedial

I have used this resource in a wide variety of context -- a videopodcast to introduce a topic, some interactive lesson from the nasa database, had students use some of the images to classify galaxies, etc.

Provides visualization or animation, Increases modeling skills, Provides access to data sets, Provides access to remote instrumentation, Increases data collection & analysis skills, Increases access to scientists, Increases student engagement and motivation

The multimedia lab itself is just great. Lots of images available and it has a searchable database. It has a video podcasts and audio podcasts on a wide variety of topics. All very useable.

In a larger context, every major project done by NASA has a component of education outreach. All of the lesson plans are available on the web site and can be sorted by level (9-12) and then by topic.

The nasa site in general and the multimedia page in particular is very deep and you can easily get sucked in to just searching around. That has it pros and cons. A great site to let kids go to when developing an extra credit project that they would like to work on.

Since the web site is so incredibly deep it can be hard to find what you are looking for -- especially if you are going back to find a particular activity you have used in the past. They can also have a lot more resources for the younger grades than they do for the older grades. It may be worth looking at those younger activities and editting the activity up (but that can be a fair amount of work.)