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Thursday, December 14 You can help design SOFIA, the follow-on to the KAO. See http://passporttoknowledge.com/lfs/sofia.html for details. Monday, November 13 Evaluation forms are now available (see above). Please take the time to send us your thoughts about this project. Your input is critical to us. ******************************************************************************** Thursday, October 26 New diagrams (very pretty) have been added to the Web which show how the communications paths were accomplished for the historic first-ever, two-way video, data and audio links between the ground and a flying aircraft for general broadcast purposes. Look in the section called "KAO LIve" for these pictures. ******************************************************************************** Monday, October 23 New information has been added to the People section, including biographies of ground crew, and pictures and sound bytes of some select individuals. ******************************************************************************** Wednesday, October 18 This is a CALL to each of you to help us document our collective LFS experience. In a few weeks, we will be asking folks to help evaluate the program. For now, we would very much like to obtain copies of media coverage of the Live From the Stratosphere project. We ask that anyone who is aware of coverage of any type (newspaper, TV, etc.), PLEASE submit the articles and send video tapes of your event coverage to: PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE, 41 ROWAN ROAD, SUMMIT, NJ 07901 Phone: (908) 273-4108. ******************************************************************************** Friday, October 13 Harry Shipman, a professor of Science, Physics, and Astronomy at the University of Delaware wrote in with the following suggestion for improving your Star Census results: Instead of immediately counting stars as soon as you step outside from a well lit area (inside), consider first getting used to the light level by "dark adapting" The process is gradual. After about 10 minutes, unless the sky is **really** dark, you're pretty well dark-adapted. In places where the sky is really dark, you still see some improvement after that. For the Star Census collaboration project, consider looking at the effects of dark adapting. You might do this by making a star count right after going into the dark, and then after 3, 6 and 10 minutes outside. Report these results in your Star Census report to be shared with other classrooms. ******************************************************************************** Tuesday, October 10 We would like to identify certain Live From the Stratosphere participants. If you are a teacher in Utah or in central Arkansas, please send a brief Email note to marc@quest.arc.nasa.gov and be sure to include a phone number Thanks so much ******************************************************************************** Tuesday, October 10 In final editing, an error was made in activity sheet 3C (on the back of the poster). The sheet states, "Albedo is an index of how bright or dark a surface is in visible light (the lower the number, the brighter). This should have read: the higher the albedo number, the more visible light is reflected and thus the brighter the surface appears in visible light. ******************************************************************************** Monday, October 9 A virtual Kuiper is under construction in cyberspace. This student- led project may have special appeal for computer-oriented students, particularly those familiar with MUDs, MOOs and MUSEs. If you'd like to take a look at what is happening, telnet to micro.musenet.org. Then @tel to room #2074. Look for edwardo online. For more information about this activity, visit the "Kids Stuff" area online or send Email to David at dcd@quest.arc.nasa.gov. ******************************************************************************** Saturday, October 7 Here's your chance to participate in the On-line Star Census. This activity is based on the Activity 1E in the Teachers Guide. Project Archive Update 18 has details. This activity is designed to encourage students to observe the quality of the night sky and to determine the number of stars that can be seen from their local area. Students are asked to estimate how many stars there are outside at night. They devise a way to count the stars in the sky. If you have access, their data will become part of a national, on-line collaboration. We'll be featuring star-counting and light pollution activities during the Night Flight to the Stars program, which airs live beginning at 20:00 Eastern on October 13th. We would like to include your data. Please send the information above to marc@quest.arc.nasa.gov; in order to be ready for the evening program, we will need to have the data by 10:00 AM Pacific time on Friday, October 13 (earlier would be better). The time frame for this Star Census project is: October 13 - quick look data due by 10:00AM Pacific October 24 - first reports are due November 7 - final summary reports are due LFS ONLINE CONNECTION There are two parts to the online connection 1) a quick look at some simple data 2) a more detailed, longer time frame collaboration Part 1: For the quick look part, have students count the number of stars they see as detailed in Project Archive Update #18. As a class, come up with one number which is a good average of the count in your area. Part 2: We hope that teachers will work with their students to prepare reports from their observations which better reflect the complexities of the task. For example, how do the following factors effect the numbers: - weather - proximity to surface lighting - time of night that the observations were made - size of the moon (if you take make observations over time) - etc, etc As an additional activity, classes can examine the other reports and 1) get ideas for improving their original report 2) derive new meaning as more data from other locations becomes available (for example, students may learn that students in the mountains see more stars then those closer to sea level). We encourage classes to produce a final report that synthesizes the information from other reports into a final summary. These reports will also be shared online.See Project Archive Update #18 for details. For those of you who are Web publishers, please feel free to develop your information on the Web. Send these reports electronically if possible to<b> marc@quest.arc.nasa.gov. <b> If you are not able to send formatted reports online, then please mail disks to Marc Siegel, NASA Ames Research Center, Mailstop T-28H, Moffett Field, CA 94035. (Any disks sent will be returned). If sending the reports on disk is a problem, then send in a paper version and we will scan it in. *********************************************************************************** Thursday, October 5 The capability to send Email questions to the men and women of the Kuiper team is now available. This message will describe some guidelines and procedures for the process. See Project Upates for specific "How to's". SENDING EMAIL TO EXPERTS ------------------------ K-12 students and teachers can Email questions to researchers, engineers and support staff. This interaction will be supported by a "Smart Filter" which protects the professional from Internet overload by acting as a buffer. If possible, please review the materials available online to gain an overall understanding of the basics. It would be best to ask questions that are not easily answered elsewhere. Any individual teacher will be limited to submitting a total of twenty (20) questions during the life of the project. Hopefully this will encourage more classroom discussion about what students want to know and will lead to research done before asking questions. We will acknowledge and answer all questions as quickly as possible. Our goal is to provide a basic acknowledgment immediately. In most cases we should be able to provide an answer within one week to ten days. SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ALREADY ASKED ------------------------------------------------ An archive of question/answer pairs of previously asked questions will be maintained. This archive can accessed using the Internet tools called Gopher or World Wide Web. It will also be available using basic Email. ***** HOT TOPIC: Live From the Stratosphere ***** Guides and Resources Archive of Questions and Answers Using a Web browser, connect to this URL: http://passporttoknowledge.com/lfs A capability to automatically return interesting question/answer pairs is also available. This will operate through regular Email. The system relies on the sender choosing one or more keywords related to their interest. Every existing question/answer pair will be searched to see if it contains the keywords. The five pairs which best match the keywords will be returned automatically. See Project Update 16 for more details. A capability has been set up for those people that would like to receive ongoing Email with answers to all of the questions asked. Each night, one mail message will be sent to those interested. This message will contain a copy of every question/answer pair generated that day. If you are interested in this feature, send an Email to Leave the subject blank and in the message body, write the words: subscribe answers-lfs *********************************************************************************** Wednesday, October 4 This news just in... the Space Shuttle launch scheduled for October 5 will be delayed due to weather. As a result, The Live From the Stratosphere program called "The Pre-Flight Briefing" will be carried live beginning at about 12:03PM Eastern time. *********************************************************************************** Wednesday, September 27 There is a lot of activity at the NASA Ames Research Center (home to the KAO) these days in preparation for Thursday's live broadcast. The program promises to be exciting and we hope that you are able to view the show live or on tape delay or via videotape (from CORE). The program will focus on the Kuiper aircraft and its special equipment which turn it into the world's only flying astronomical observatory. By the end of the program, you will have a much better feeling for how the different people and systems work together to produce extraordinary infrared astronomy. The program will air live from noon-1:00pm Eastern on October 5th. Check local listings to see if your local PBS station will be carrying the program and at what time. Or the program will be available from the PBS satellite. During the program, questions will be accepted via email. A few particularly relevant questions will be read aloud during the broadcast. To have your question considered, send a message DURING THE PROGRAM (NOT BEFORE) to onair-lfs@quest.arc.nasa.gov Questions which are not answered "on the air" can be still be answered. A process for answering every question from classrooms will be available from October 5th through November 17. In order to have your questions addressed, a specific procedure will need to be followed. Explicit directions for this process will be emailed by noon (Pacific time) on October 5. Questions which are not answered during the broadcast via the onair-lfs@quest address will need to be resubmitted through this process in order to be answered. Past experience has shown that students really enjoy sending messages to NASA and getting answers. Hopefully you can use this tool to motivate students for focused learning. Shortly you will receive a special message which details a star counting activity. The number of visible stars in the sky at your location is determined by local light pollution, intensity of moonlight, weather and other factors. We would like to begin an activity in which many classrooms record their observations and share data. We hope to be able to show some preliminary results during the October 13 program. So please stand by for more detailed instructions on how to participate in this hands-on data gathering and collaboration activity. For Spanish language bilingual educators or ESL teachers, a new maillist is now available. To participate in this activity, start by sending a mail message to In the message body, write these words: subscribe espanol-lfs *********************************************************************************** Tuesday, September 26 Tonight we will begin distributing the first in a series of weekly LFS Newsletters. In the future you can expect them to be mailed out each Monday. The newsletters will summarize various project activities and will be a good way to stay in touch with the three T's: Television, Telecommunications and Teachers. We would like to identify Live From the Stratosphere participants who meet certain criteria. If you are planning a special LFS activity like a student sleepover, or star party, or community event, please let us know. We are very interested in the special ways that LFS is planned to be used. *********************************************************************************** Saturday, September 23 A new resource is available for teachers who are undertaking their first electronic field trip. The document was written by middle school teacher Scott Coletti who has taken his classes on the previous two Passport to Knowledge adventures. Scott has captured the lessons he's learned in turning these trips into meaningful educational experiences. Although the document is still a draft, it is still quite valuable in its rough form. If you are a bit unsure of how to get started with Live From the Stratosphere, please peruse Scott's document. It is available on the LFS Gopher (quest.arc.nasa.gov under Guides and Resources) or on the LFS Web under "Guides and things." A new Web resource is available for students. It is a short section which describes why telescopes are put in airplanes, including the history and future of the technology. It has kid-friendly (cute) graphics and small (quick downloading) pictures. Visit this resource on the LFS Web under the "Kids' stuff" area *********************************************************************************** Friday, September 22 The first Live From the Stratosphere (LFS) video product was released this past week when it aired over PBS and NASA TV. This 30-minute tape was stuffed with information which will help teachers prepare for teaching the material to their students. If you missed this program, you will be best served if you can catch it. NASA TV plans to rebroadcast the show the week of September 25 according to the following schedule (all times Eastern): Sept 25 Mon Sept 26 Tues Sept 27 Wed Sept 28 Thurs 13:00-13:32 01:00-01:32 01:28-02:00 01:02-01:34 16:00-16:32 13:28-14:00 13:02-13:34 19:00-19:32 16:28-17:00 16:02-16:34 22:00-22:32 19:28-20:00 19:02-19:34 22:28-23:00 22:02-22:34 NASA TV can be found on C-band on the Spacenet 2 satellite, 69 degrees West, transponder 5, channel 9, frequency 3880.0 Mhz, Horizontal polarization, audio on 6.2 and 6.8. NASA TV is also rebroadcast on many cable TV or community access stations. This program is also available on videotape from Passport to Knowledge. Many teachers have reported frustration at their inability to receive last week's broadcast as it aired. Based on our previous experiences, this is not uncommon. The Live From the Stratosphere team distributes the broadcasts nationally through satellite, but every teacher needs to make local arrangements for receiving these broadcasts. If you plan on viewing the television programs live or on tape, you must begin planning how you will do this. See the previous update (LFS #9) for hints or join the discuss-lfs list (see below) to brainstorm with other teachers on potential solutions. *********************************************************************************** Wednesday, September 20 Presently there are two ways to meet others teachers. One is through a maillist called discuss-lfs. This list will provide a forum for teachers to discuss a wide variety of issues, concerns, teaching strategies, useful resources, project collaboration opportunities, and suggestions. To join this discussion, send an email message to In the message body, write these words: subscribe discuss-lfs Also, a capability on the Web exists for semi-real-time chatting. The facility is a bit more clunky then an AOL-style chat room, but nonetheless it allows folks to communicate back and forth. I think all of the Web Chatters are in the process of learning how to effectively communicate with this tool. You are cordially invited to join this experiment if you have Web access. Please go to http://passporttoknowledge.com/lfs/lfs-chat.html The next scheduled Web Chat meeting is for Tuesday, September 26 at 4:30pm Pacific time. Also, feel free to drop in at any time and see if you can stir up some action on your own. *********************************************************************************** Wednesday, September 13 The discuss-lfs maillist is now open for business. This list will provide a forum for teachers to discuss a wide variety of issues, concerns, teaching strategies, useful resources, project collaboration opportunities, and suggestions about the Live From theStratosphere project. You can read this list from either the Teachers' Lounge or Guides & Resources areas, or through Email (send a message to , in the message body write: subscribe discuss-lfs). *********************************************************************************** Saturday, September 9 During past projects, we have received comments that some of the updates are too long or that some vocabulary/concepts are too difficult for the average middle schooler. So for this project, in addition to the regular Field Journals, we will be offering an easier-to-read version geared towards an average 5th/6th grader's interests and vocabulary. These messages will be distilled from the regular messages. I am looking for a few volunteers who would be willing to produce these reports. These folks should have a clear understanding of 5th/6th grade reading skills. I expect to begin these reports in about two weeks and continue through early November. Volunteers would be expected to write no more than one report per week. If you are interested, please send a note to me at marc@quest.arc.nasa.gov. Thank you. If you are interested in receiving these so-called Junior Reports, please send an email to . Leave the subject blank, and in the message body, write these words: subscribe junior-lfs *********************************************************************************** Wednesday, September 6 The teacher kits began shipping. These kits include: * a printed 64-page Teacher's Guide, chock full of student activities * an original color poster with more activities printed on the back * four spectrum glasses * a diffraction grating * several sheets of heat-sensitive paper * a bonus Passport to Knowledge bumper sticker * additional NASA curriculum materials
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