Cosmic Collisions...or random thoughts from Joel!

Hey I have made it to blog number two. I feel like this may be the hardest one to do because now I am making a commitment to do this every week or close to every week. A lot has certianly transpired in a week. On a personal note, I ran The Race for the Cure two weekends ago in Oklahoma City. It was pretty cool, but not much of a race. At least for me as I am slow. It was fun to be around so many people and giving to such a good cause. A very neat atmosphere! Here at the Cos we are starting to get into the fall mode which encompasses planning and last minute programs. I wanted to blog about both today.

Planning for the summer of 2009 is well underway. The Future Astronaut Training Program is quickly approaching the quarter century mark and we have been confronted with a huge challenge. We have to change our entire camp program from a shuttle focus to a Constellation focus...Moon and Mars. This is going to be quite a task, but one that I feel we can accomplish with time and planning. I would love for the Cosmosphere to be the first organization to be running Orion (The manned capsule for the Constellation program. Find out more here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/main/index.html)simulations for schools and summer camps. I can only imagine who cool it will be to have seventh graders training for a simulated mission to the Moon. Look for mini-camps coming soon (maybe even this Christmas) where we will start to test all of these new ideas. It will require incredible team work and a fair amount of LICE as well. What is that, you ask? Why did I mention a parasitic creature when talking about Lunar Exploration? Great question. My education team and I cam up with that acronym while identifying the core components of any successful education program at the Cosmosphere. Here it is:

L = Leadership. We want to inspire young and old to be leaders in any way that they can.

I = Inspiration. If a program does not inspire than we cannot hope to educate.

C = Challenge. We feel that it is our job to challenge future explorers to reach new heights.

E = Entertain. You might have been waiting for educate here, but it is hard to educate if they don't show up in the first place. We have to get them in the seats.

I like it! It is what we do! By the way, did you know that the platypus does not get lice. Hmmmm...

Back to space and the Cosmosphere. We have a lot of work to do to realign our camp and education programs to NASA's new bold exploration vision, but I have no doubts that we will be able to do so and bring exciting educational offerings to both schools and the public. Spesaking of exciting educational opportunities, don't forget about Teachers Night Out on Nov. 21. Former Astronaut Winston Scott will be in the building for a keynote speech to all of the educators in attendance. He will also be in the building the morning of the 22nd of November for a public talk and book signing. Make your travel plans now!

That was a little random, but aren't all commercials like that? The Cosmosphere, as I mentioned last week, is getting ready to launch some new distance learning programs. Exactly what form they will take may be up to you. I want to hear from you what you want. Do you want a full hour long briefing from an educator? A week long project facilitated daily by a ten minute internet chat with our education team and an on-site follow up at the end? Do you want podcasts of cool content? Blogs, skypes and plurks...oh my! These internet tools are like lions, tigers and bears to me right now as we navigate our way through to you. Please help us figure out what you want. This is going to be a lot of fun and I expect many of you to take the journey with us.

Incredible journies are the theme of the day. Last week I met with Susan Chase from the Chase Foundation. This is the group that was responsible for bringing two groups of South African students to take part in the Future Astronaut Training Program and arranged for a Cosmosphere education trip there two years ago. She has just returned from Chile and our goal is to start bringing students up from Argentina and Chile. Susan assures that the students will be able to speak English though. I was actually dissapointed to hear that. It would have been a challenge but fun as well. Early next year she will be bringing the Director of Colegio Puerto Varas (a school in Puerto Varas, Chile) to visit the Cosmosphere. Her goal and mine is to impress him so much that he starts sending students to us to learn about space and space science while opening an "internet portal" (sounds like something from a bad horror movie) between the Cosmosphere and Chile. If I can reach students in Chile and South Africa then students in Kansas City and Towanda should be a piece of cake. I just went to the school's website and I realize that I need to learn Spanish pretty soon. It is 13 degrees Celsius there right now though. That is 55 degrees F...at least I can still do math.

The last area that I want to talk about is professional development. In the past week we have set up two in-services for schools in Andover and Wichita. The one in Wichita is with Mueller Elementary. We are very excited about that one. Mueller is starting to develop aerospace and engineering cirriculum for their students from pre-K through 5th grade and we are doing everything that we can to help. Anne Clemens and Michele Snodgrass are doing a fantastic job getting those kids and educators at Mueller excited about this concept and we are honored to be a part of this neat experience. We will be helping out with professional development, camp scholarships, specialized student programs and general support as they begin this inredible journey. Keep checking back to find out more about this!

Have a great week and keep reaching for the stars. Our future depends on it!