The Space Academy Partnership is an initiative drawing National and International attention and recognition.

Space Academy success in Houston

The Space Academy team were recently invited to present sessions at the world’s largest space education conference at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The team - Project Scientist Dr Catherine Muller (University of Leicester), science teacher Ruth Williamson (Priory LSST Academy, Lincoln), Project manager Dr Sarah Hill and National Space Centre Education Director Anu Ojha – showcased how ESA’s Rosetta mission could be used to teach high school physics and chemistry concepts. In addition, they focused on new teaching ideas developed by the project that focus on GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) – and how science from space can be used to safeguard the future on Earth.

The Space Academy sessions were the largest workshops of the conference, with over 60 attendees in each session – including the whole of NASA’s AESP (Aerospace Education Services Program) team from all 10 NASA centers across the United States. To read Dr Muller’s full report on the conference click here

Finally, Ruth Williamson had the unique opportunity to participate in a crew training session (ascent abort profiles) for the forthcoming STS-134 mission! Scheduled to be the last flight of space shuttle Endeavour, this mission has extensive ESA involvement (including Italy’s Roberto Vittori flying as a Mission Specialist on his third spaceflight) and will install the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on Station. Many thanks to Mission Commander Mark Kelly for facilitating this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!  

Space Academy – further NASA collaboration

The Space Academy team has been invited to collaborate on two NASA education projects focusing on the use of GPS (Global Positioning System) and EO (Earth Observation) in high school teaching.

Project Director Anu Ojha will be co-ordinating work with NASA Dryden (located at Edwards Air Force Base in California) and NASA’s Human Research Program (Johnson Space Center) on these new initiatives which may yield major new opportunities for UK science teachers to work with US colleagues and to participate in Earth Observation research during 2011 as part of NASA’s AREE program http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/teachingfromspace/home/aree.html  

Previous Presentations

17 - 19 November 2009 - Hong Kong Science Festival

The Space Academy project has been invited to present, on behalf of the British Council, at the 2009 Hong Kong Science Alive festival at the Hong Kong Science Museum. 

http://www.britishcouncil.org/hongkong-creativity-and-society-science-lectures.htm

February 2010 – Johnson Space Center

February sees the world’s largest space education conference, NASA’s annual Space Exploration and Educator’s Conference (SEEC). Drawing more than 600 educators and space science personnel from all over the United states, Canada and Japan it includes presentations from various NASA centers, the Japan Space Agency (JAXA) and, in February 2009 the Space Academy partnership were invited to present. Project Director Anu Ojha, Project Scientist Dr Simon Roberts (University of Nottingham) and Project Lead Educators Judith Green and Steve Althorpe (Robert Smyth School) presented two of the largest conference workshops. Their focus was on how ESA’s Rosetta mission to rendezvous with and land on a comet nucleus can be used to teach various aspects of A level physics and chemistry.

The evaluations of the Space Academy sessions were the highest of the whole conference and the Space Academy team have been invited to represent BNSC and the UK Space Industry at the 2010 conference.

For a report on 2009's presentation click here

For a synopsis of the upcoming 2010 presentation click here

September 2009 - Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Conference

In September 2009 Space Academy scientist Dr Catherine Muller presented about the Space Academy at this year’s Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Conference, the largest Earth Observation conference in the UK. 

http://www.rspsoc2009.org

For a copy of Dr. Muller's paper click here

2008 - International Astronautical Congress

The strategic and programmatic structures of the Space Academy project were presented at the 2008 International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow.

The programme has also been presented to the European Space Agency (ESA) Advisory Committee on Education (September 2008, Amsterdam) and the EURISY international space skills and education conference in Prague (March 2009)

For a copy of the report click here