1. MAVEN Red Planet: Read, write, explore
MAVEN Red Planet: Read, write, explore! Elementary school teacher professional development
Conducted by members of the MAVEN mission EPO team, these one-day workshops have occurred at UC-Berkeley, The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque, The Mexican Consulate in LA, and CU-Boulder. In these workshops, over 90 elementary educators have learned about MAVEN and related Mars science, the Red Planet program, and teaching STEM concepts to diverse audiences. MAVEN science team members gave lectures: Drs. David Brain and Nick Schneider (Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics), Dr. David Mitchell (Space Sciences Laboratory), and Sandra Cauffman (Goddard Space Flight Center). Teachers received materials for classroom experiments and a copy of Dr. Jeffrey Bennett’s book, Max Goes to Mars. Four more workshops are being planned for FY14, including one in Orlando, Florida on November 16th, directly before the MAVEN launch.
“The entire day was extremely valuable and you hit all the basics from science and mission content to pedagogy and meeting the needs of all students.” –Berkeley participant
All release forms on file.
A pre-post test shows gains in understanding in blue (N=56). Data is compiled from all four workshops, but not all individuals took both the pre and post test, yielding a lower N value than actually represented. Gravity in space, the lowest result, is indirectly covered during the workshop but still shows positive gain.