To the Moon
Education for A New Era of Lunar Exploration
a new online course started Sept. 24, 2007 - no new students are being accepted.
Kaguya, Chang'e and Chandrayaan are not familiar names, yet they herald a new era of lunar exploration. These are spacecraft being sent to orbit the Moon by Japan, China and India, starting September 2007. They will be joined in 2008 by America's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. These four ships are the largest armada to the Moon in the nearly 50 years since the USA and the Soviet Union initiated the first era of space exploration.
Half a century ago lunar exploration was fueled by the desire to demonstrate superiority of political systems, now we are returning to learn how to live on the Moon as a precursor to humanity's move into space. The continuing flood of news, images and discoveries from this second generation of lunar spacecraft offer a timely opportunity for educators to capitalize on the excitement of exploration. And it will also be a time when educators will be expected to understand and explain these programs and their science context to students and the public.
To the Moon is a new graduate level online course to provide educators and other public outreach professionals information about the Moon, these new missions, and ways to use them in science education. The course will be team-taught under the direction of Charles Wood, a lunar scientist, education expert, and the Executive Director of the NASA-sponsored Classroom of the Future, housed at the Center for Educational Technologies (CET) at Wheeling Jesuit University. Chuck has studied the Moon since the first golden age of exploration and is the author of The Modern Moon: A Personal View, a monthly lunar column in Sky and Telescope magazine, and three lunar websites including Lunar Photo of the Day.
Laurie Ruberg, CET Associate Director, is collaborating in the development of the syllabus for the course, dissemination and overall course evaluation. She will also serve as the instructor for one of the weekly topics. Other faculty are Prof. Andrew Fraknoi (Foothill College, Los Robles, CA), Dr. Jennifer Grier (Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ) and Jane Neuenschwander (CET).
This new course is offered entirely online and thus is conveniently available to busy teachers, planetarium and science center workers, NASA outreach staff, after-school educators, the media and anyone else who wants to use the excitement of current space exploration to impact learning by students and the public. The course will use a wiki for communication and sharing. Each week will include readings, discussions, activities evaluations and observing.
Learn More:
Syllabus
The Faculty
How the Course Will Work
Sign Up
