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KidSat

(a project of UCSD, John Hopkins and JPL)

The goal of KidSat is to capture the interest of large numbers of students, by involving them in the excitement of the space program.

Its components include:
cameras (designed and operated by kids) on the space shuttle 
missions planning and operations in classrooms 
coordinated educational materials
teacher training

KidSat is a set of camera instruments that will fly in space, first on the Space Shuttle, then on the Russian space station Mir. The cameras will be designed and operated by students. From "mission operations centers" in their classrooms they will decide what parts of the Earth to photograph; their decisions will be passed on to NASA's mission control, then to the camera in orbit; the pictures taken by KidSat will be sent back to Earth, and distributed to classrooms to be analyzed by the students.

The project includes the development of a mission control center at UCSD, which acts as a gateway to student mission operations centers (centers which can easily be replicated at any school, with any level of technology). KidSat also includes the development of associated curriculum, and the training of teachers in the use of that curriculum.

During the initial phase of the project a coordinated set of curricula, lesson plans, and resource guides will be developed to go along with KidSat. We envision applications in science, geography, math, history, art and exploration. At each school, teachers would implement the curricula suited to their interests, then students would decide what they wanted to photograph (and why). 

KidSat would be accessible to any interested school. A wide range of curricula could be enhanced by the experience of participation and the creative use of the Earth photographs.