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[[header/left side]] 04/25/95 13:13 FAX 818 354 9476 [[header/center]] TERRESTRIAL SCI ->->-> RIDE [[header/right side]] 001/004 [[/header]]

[[left margin]]To: Betsy
                   Sally[[/left margin]]

1995 International Geosciences and Remote Sensing

[[right margin]]File this. Comments? Fig of cameras will also be added. SJR [[?]] [[/margin note]]

KidSat

JoBea Way
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
Mail Stop 300-233, 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena, CA 91109
818-354-8225, Fax: 818-354-9476, Email: way@lor.jpl.nasa.gov

[[center]]Elizabeth Jones Stork
Institute for Academic Advancement of Youth, The Johns Hopkins University[[/center]]

[[center]]Sally Ride
California Space Institute, University of California - San Diego[[/center]]

Abstract -- The KidSat project seeks to make educational history by providing K-12 students access to real time images of the Earth from their own observing instruments in space, and incorporating these images into the full range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary study. Our vision is to capture the interest of all children by placing these instruments on the piloted space platforms and giving young people their own piece of the space program. This vision is being realized through the collaboration of three primary organizations: The California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, The University of California-San Diego's California Space Institute, and The Johns Hopkins University's Institute for Academic Advancement of Youth.

  The KidSat instruments will eventually be based on the International Space Station; early pathfinder missions will be carried out on the Shuttle. The KidSat project includes a mission control structure which allows many schools and all students around the country to participate in the operation of the instruments; and an information system to provide ready access to KidSat data through the Internet. Most importantly, KidSat includes a coordinated set of curricular materials which lays the educational foundation for the project.

  We intend KidSat to be a long term program with periodic flight opportunities, and eventual involvement of K-12 schools throughout the country. We are developing the program in a systematic way, beginning with a manageable pilot program focussed on middle schooles and gradually expanding to nationwide involvement. Our intent is not to develop more scientists and engineers, but to create a community that is aware of NASA as a potential resource in a wide variety of applications through both the piloted and the robotic space programs.

INTRODUCTION

  An instrument on the Space Shuttle turns and points, taking an image of the Earth below. The instrument is being guided not by astronauts in space or scientists in NASA's mission control center, but by a student in an urban school engaged in the study of ancient trade routes. Even more compelling is that the instrument was configured by students, in concert with scientists and engineers, and is dedicated to the advancement of learning.

  Young people are fascinated with space, their own environment and technology. KidSat is designed to capitalize on the human instinct to learn and explore [1]. Imagine the excitement of learning through interaction with a real space mission and control of real cameras and instruments operating hundreds of miles above Earth [2]. Learning now has a new purpose. It is compelling and inspiring. That is the vision of KidSat; to become a catalyst for pre-collegiate education by bringing the resources of NASA, the excitement of space and an astronaut's view of our planet to young people across America [2].

THE KIDSAT CONCEPT

The exact specifications for the KidSat instruments are being made by students. Potential instruments that migh tform [[error circled]] the basis of the instrument package include a digital camera, an optical sensor, and an imager from a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The use of telepresence in parallel with some of the instruments will give children an opportunity to view the Earth as the astronauts do - students will have the opportunity to explore. Every effort will be made to use instruments that are already

Transcription Notes:
changed "if" to "of" on the handwritten pen comment