Application Deadline Is April 15th

The Space Frontier Foundation's Teachers in Space (TIS) has put out its final call for teachers' applications for free, NASA-sponsored summer workshops. April 15th is the application closing date," said TIS project Manager Elizabeth Kennick. "There are some slots still open, but we can only accommodate 140 total teachers for these extraordinary experiences."

Teachers in Space is a project to inspire student interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by engaging teachers with authentic astronaut training and real space science experiences combined with information and resources they bring into classrooms across America.

The workshops are offered for high school teachers of math, science and technology. "We are providing a world class experience that teachers can take back to the classroom," Kennick continued. "For qualified teachers with a passion for space, there is no better opportunity for this summer." The weeklong workshops will include Suborbital Astronautics, Space Medicine and Human Factors, and Suborbital Flight Experiments.

At the Suborbital Astronautics workshop, teachers will discover the world of aeronautic/astronautics and spaceflight while experiencing some of the training concepts that future space pilots will receive. Expert instructors will include astronaut, former Space Shuttle Commander/Pilot and XCOR Aerospace Chief Test Pilot Col. Rick Searfoss (USAF-ret) and Dr. Kurt Long NASA Ames' - Wind Tunnel Expert. Workshops will be held at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, FL, on July 9-13, and repeated at the NASA Dryden AERO Institute in Palmdale, CA, on July 30-Aug 3.

The Space Medicine and Human Factors workshop offers learning in high-altitude physiology and respiration, decompression and vacuum exposure, space weather and radiation, as well as the effects of weightlessness, G-forces, noise, and vibration. Participants will experience the effects of high altitude in a normobaric chamber used to teach pilots to recognize the symptoms of oxygen loss at high altitudes. Workshops will be held at the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute in Oklahoma City on June 25-29 and repeated at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, FL, on July 16-20.

At the Suborbital Flight Experiment workshop, teachers will gain hands-on experience with space hardware as they build experiments to fly onboard an unmanned suborbital experiment as part of the Excelsior STEM mission. Some participants' experiments will be flown on suborbital flight by Masten Space Systems, projected for Fall 2012. The workshop will be held at the NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, on July 23-27. The Space Frontier Foundation's annual conference will be there at the same time offering teachers who want to stay for an extra day to meet the leaders of the new space age.

FMI: www.tis.spacefrontier.org