Students Join in Webcast with Next Civilian in Space
Tue Apr 22 2008
The next civilian to fly into space talked to students around the world on April 21, and a group of seventh-graders from Zanesville, Ohio, tuned into the webcast at the Challenger Learning Center.
Richard Garriott, a preeminent game developer and son of NASA Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott, held an interactive live webcast with students and teachers at the 50 Challenger Learning Centers around the world. He is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station in October. He is in Star City, Russia, training for the mission and will conduct the webcast from there.
The Challenger Learning Center® in the Center for Educational Technologies® broadcast the webcast. Flying the Return to the Moon mission at the center were 45 seventh grade students from Bishop Fenwick Catholic School in Zanesville. They and their teacher, Carol Griffin, watched the webcast while they ate lunch in the center. Students were invited to submit questions online and through YouTube for the webcast.
Garriott plans to spend time before, during and after his flight conducting interactive activities with students; holding amateur ham radio conversations with students during his flight; and performing experiments that can be replicated by students using everyday objects to demonstrate important concepts in physics.
