Scroll down this page to read the descriptions of the five NASA Inspired projects. Each one was designed to strengthen teaching and learning in science, with funding from NASA to inspire the next generation of exploration and innovation.
This is an online resource center supporting teaching and learning with NASA's Virtual Lab. This is a great site for middle and high school science teachers, providing the software download along with animations showing how the tools work and videos showing their use. Teachers are adding lesson plans to the site and can access short support videos also showing how to use the tools. This has been designed to support quick integration from requests made by teachers.
New! Cogs has added CaseNex video case studies of Samantha, a teacher, who decides to integrate the Virtual Lab into her classroom. Now you can watch as her story unfolds and learn how to integrate along the way.
This is the download of NASA's software - a simulation of advanced microscopes and specimens for middle and high school classrooms developed by the Beckman Institute for use in schools, colleges, museums, and professional labs. This link provides access to a direct download of the software for any user. The Cogs Website (above) has been specifically developed to support Virtual Lab for middle and high school science teachers. If you are teacher (or student) click on the Cogs Website above to install with directions for classroom installation, installation support videos, and tips for classroom use. The Virtual Lab software has been released nationally for science teaching and learning after testing and redesign with teachers and students in low-SES schools.
This is an online gallery of noted scientists who worked with microscopes and telescopes. Use the scope provided in Glimpse and see what they saw. This easily brings the history of science to middle and high school students, as you can explore the perspectives that Galileo, Hooke, and other scientists had available through their telescopes and microscopes. The glimpses have been gathered from early sketches, models, and photographs. This has been designed to allow students and teachers to see with their own eyes how tools impact they way we understand the world. Beyond each individual viewpoint Glimpse shows how beliefs today are founded on the views of yesterday. This site includes simple, short questions for students to explore further through research. (This site is best viewed at a resolution of 1024x768.)
This is a game using images from telescopes and microscopes along a journey into space. This downloadable software is a great way to introduce middle school students to microscopic images from the Virtual Lab alongside spectacular scenes captured by NASA's four great observatories. Once downloaded use the "info" button to access more information and teaching ideas. This has been developed to create a fun, fast way to begin exploring while also viewing the awesome sights that are beyond the scope of the human eye. Tip: When you have downloaded the file folder from this Website remember where you save it. Then, in the file folder, find the launch icon and make a short cut to your desktop for quick access to the game (the launch icon: nasa_final.exe).
This offers an online overview of some of the key figures in the development and use of the telescope and microscope. Use your mouse to travel forwards or backwards through time or travel through the timeline jumping from conversation to conversation linking the scientists across time. Tip: Read "How to Orbit" and practice whirling the timeline. Hold your mouse at the center right in front to slow or top the orbit. Orbit has been designed to show the men and women who advanced scientific beliefs using telescopes and microscopes and provides access to key concepts through the individual stories of people who made a difference. (This is best viewed at a resolution of 1024x768.)
This is one entry point for Glimpse, Mercury 13, and Innovation Orbit allowing you one place for students to bookmark and return to. Infinity is a suite of games and videos focused on telescopes and microscopes (these are best viewed at a resolution of 1024x768.)
After completing a science lab in your classroom students can enter their findings online into the Digital Science Notepad (DSN), while they are in your classroom, in a school computer lab, or at home. Once the information from their experiments is entered, students are able to transform their reports into one of three formats (a professional lab report, a newscast, or an historical treatise). You can have your students print off or save each transformation or even a list of all of the information they entered from their experiments. DSN provides a standardized lab format that was developed by high school teachers based on prevalent science classroom formats that already existed on paper. The experience provides motivation as students see their reports transformed. Together you can compare and contrast the resulting texts, exploring the ways in which science is communicated to the public. Even without technology in your school the lab template can be printed and copied on paper, providing a consistent format for all students and across several lab sections. Tip: The transformations work best when students follow the DSN "hints" as they type. Please read the overview provided in DSN for more information and ideas.
