planets are places too

David Crown

NASA Education

Planets are Places too: professional development workshops for elementary and middle school teachers

The Planetary Science Institute (PSI), with our partner the Tucson Regional Science Center (RSC), proposes to offer a series of professional development workshops targeting elementary and middle school teachers within the Tucson, Arizona region. This Collaborative Education project (ROSES-2008-EDUC) will include refinement and continued implementation of two workshops (Moon-Earth System and Exploring the Terrestrial Planets) developed with previous NASA E/PO funding and creation of a new workshop, entitled Volcanoes of the Solar System. We plan to offer a total of five workshops over the two-year duration of the proposed project. Our team of planetary scientists and education specialists will use interest in planetary science and space exploration to enhance Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) learning and teaching by improving the content knowledge and conceptual understanding of our participants while instilling greater scientific confidence and more positive attitudes towards science and science education. Our E/PO team will conduct formative and summative evaluations of our project that will allow us to modify our content and workshop formats during its course.