NASA Launches Educational Website

Rob writes to tell us Computer Business Review magazine is reporting that NASA has launched a new educational site targeting children in kindergarten through fourth grade. From the article: "The website aims to appeal to both parents and educators wishing to help develop children's knowledge in subjects such as science, technology and mathematics. [...] 'Our goal with the Kids' Club is to provide a medium that encourages children's interest in exploring the subjects important to developing early skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics,' said Angela Phillips Diaz, NASA's acting assistant administrator for education."

Comments

Does this work?

[Wellington Grey]

Interactive games on the site teach children about exploring space, building and launching rockets, keeping airplanes on schedule and how a comet travels through the solar system.

Not that I don't appreciate NASA attempt, but does anyone know of any studies showing the effectiveness of computer games on learning? Both my experiences as a student and now as a science teacher tell me they are a worst of both worlds solution. Too much reading/obvious attempts to educate to make a fun game, far too shallow content to make a good lesson.

-Grey

Re:Does this work?

[totalbasscase]

Interactive games on the site teach children about exploring space, building and launching rockets, keeping airplanes on schedule and how a comet travels through the solar system.

That's exactly who I want teaching my kids how to stay on schedule. The federal agency that can't get a space shuttle in the air more than once every couple of years.

While we're at it, let's have the DoD and the Pentagon start an educational website to teach our kids how to shop around and get the best deal on toys.

Pushing children toward private ventures

[CRCulver]

It seems to be that the best thing NASA could be doing now is trying to raise a generation that has the drive and vision to make private space ventures work. NASA itself is in trouble, we hear about that on Slashdot all the time (and Klerx's Lost in Space is a good introduction to its problems). NASA should begin phasing out the shuttle program, instead pushing funding towards more educational ventures such as these. I wonder, though, if the age group targeted here (kindergarten to 4th grade) is too young; focusing on adolescents who are soon to enter university, graduate, and then take part in aerospace ventures would possibly result in faster results.

I should mention that though I have my complaints about NASA, and many here are quick to tear it apart with vitriol, I think that for the time being it is the only force for robotic exploration of the universe. Private firms will be profit-driven, which for the time being means transportation from point to point on the globe, mining, and near-space tourism. Only an agency like NASA, not concerned with generating huge amounts of revenue and appeasing shareholders, would currently dare to send a probe to Pluto, for example. There is still room for encouraging children towards NASA's endeavours.

Re:Pushing children toward private ventures

[David Hume]

It seems to be that the best thing NASA could be doing now is trying to raise a generation that has the drive and vision to make private space ventures work.

Very idealistic. However, few organizations have a purpose of putting themselves out of business.

I think that for the time being it is the only force for robotic exploration of the universe. Private firms will be profit-driven, which for the time being means transportation from point to point on the globe, mining, and near-space tourism. Only an agency like NASA, not concerned with generating huge amounts of revenue and appeasing shareholders, would currently dare to send a probe to Pluto, for example.

Why only for "the time being?" Won't the reasons you give for NASA doing space exploration (as opposed to tourism, business, "transportation from point to point") always going to remain true? That is, that private firms "will be profit-driven," "concerned with generating huge amounts of revenue and appeasing shareholders?" These things are going to change over time?

There is still room for encouraging children towards NASA's endeavours.

Didn't you just say that NASA should try "to raise a generation that has the drive and vision to make private space ventures work?"

Games, not necessarily scientific education

[Anonymous Coward]

Upon looking through the website and I must say I'm disappointed.

It aims to teach space science and technology through playing several interactive games and quizes. For example, at the highest level (5th), you are asked to "guide a comet" by getting nine trivia questions about the Solar system. Ok, it's probably good to know that it takes 365days for Earth to orbit around the Sun. But would that be truly thought provoking? (it might teach kids a method of elimination by logic, I admit).

I just wonder what these people think as "scientific" education here. Knowing some stupid trivia about planets so important to become a scientist or an astronaut?

Teaching science requires more than trivia or memorization games. The key is to make students think with logics. Maybe logic is too much for K-5, well, ok, then let them discover something by playing instead. Like gravity! The kids don't need to know the law of gravity. Just create a java applet that let you play with the mass of the Sun and let the kids adjust its mass to see what sort of effect the planets would see. Or, do the orbiting rocket. Let them "see" what happens when a rocket vehicle tries to catch up on another rocket ahead of it. By "catching up" the rocket behind the second one ignites its booster to "move faster". Let the kids see what would happens to the rocket when it's gone faster. It'll show them the intricacy of astrodynamics!

The main problem on these NASA's EP/O is that the director / designers of the site often do not know what "science" is. I don't mean to single out Angela Diaz (wife of Al Diaz, who got canned from Goddard/NASA, I believe), but she's been known as manager, not exactly a teacher. Give real teachers the budget and make a better site than this, I would dare say!

[I apologize for my rant. I'm just tired of these craps NASA produces these days.]

Re:Games, not necessarily scientific education

[Cthefuture]

Ha!

Obviously someone who didn't go through the American education system. The whole system is like that and I hated school because of it. 13 years of boring busy work. I distinctly remember my first experience with school (preschool) and how incredibly moronic I thought it was for us to sit around and cut pictures out of a magazine that related to some topic. The whole time I was thinking "What, do they think we are stupid?" I was 5 or 6 years old at the time and it was a harbinger of things to come...

Re:Games, not necessarily scientific education

[Daniel Dvorkin]

A good way to determine how best to ignite an interest in science would be to ask actual scientists what it was that initially got them interested in figuring out the Why and How of things. I'll bet that most of them could give a pretty detailed accounting of that, and I'll bet you further that few, if any, of them were smitten while watching watered-down educational cartoons.

Honestly? Most would probably say either, "I don't know, I've just always been fascinated by ___," or, "Well, one day I kind of lucked into ___."

This is going to sound kind of brutal, but the truth is, most kids probably aren't going to get interested in science, and there's nothing we can do to change that. They will, if we're lucky, get interested enough in the results of science -- everything from pretty Hubble pictures to new medical treatments -- to continue supporting the people who do the actual work. But science is hard, and it involves lots of that icky math stuff, and the people who do it are, you know, nerds. Good luck with getting any more than a very small minority of kids to put in the time and effort, and make the social sacrifices required, to become real working scientists. Ever. Meanwhile, the quiet, smart ones will keep on studying, keep on working, and eventually turn themselves into the adults whose labor will change the world.

Re:Games, not necessarily scientific education

[Edzor]

just looking around the site, it is all depressing lowest common denominator. but that's federal education schemes for you!

  on the "kids'" homepage there is also a weird video of Dubya doing a live linkup with the last Shuttle Crew[?] which actually depresses me even more. he waffles off some crap about the "importance of their mission" and "how proud the folks are", then the mission commander spiels off the latest BS NASA press release.

  NASAs manned mission has sadly lost its way and is rapidly turning into a joke. what happened to the NASA which wasn't afraid of taking risks and pushing real boundaries. the astronauts which you aspired to be as a kid........."important missions" my left ass cheek, the last thing a manned mission did which was of an real use is fixing Hubble!

  While the unmanned missions plods away doing the real science and exploration with none of the kudos or more importantly funding.

sigh, i know sound like a broken record and I have read the same stuff on /. a million times.

Re:Games, not necessarily scientific education

[plunge]

Well, they have had most of their real science stuff gutted so that they can put on pointless shows of heroism to impress our dear leader.

I mean, wtf is up with missions to the moon and mars? Mars is an interesting destination, but for robots. People whine about how a human being there could do so much more, but they forget that the robots we've been able to send so far all had to be EXTREMELY tiny and simple because they had to fit into a very tiny payload. If you were actually going to send human beings to Mars, you'd have to use a HUGE payload size. And for that same size, you could send tons of really powerful and complex robots that could do far more per the space they take up than two guys, their toilet, food to turn into poop, beds, tons of water to turn into urine, and entire return trip worth of fuel, spacesuits, tons of oxygen, an entire re-launcher system to get home, playstation, and so on. Not to mention a ridiculous amount of EMPTY SPACE to give the people room to move around in.

All a total waste. All so that George Bush can promise something dramatic that has no real purpose, and probably won't even really happen anyway.

And for that, NASA has had to gut tons of small, VERY cost-efficient programs that have actual scientific merit. It's insanity of the highest degree.

Finally!

[Null Nihils]

A site that uses Flash animation and cheesy sound clips for a good reason: To amuse 6-year-old children!

Re:ah, to be young again

[barefootgenius]

Ahh yes.

* To harness the power of the sun (sorry ants).
* Set both your hands on fire making rocket fuel.
* Discovering electrolysis in your bedroom (sorry Ma, I was seeing if it was explosive).
* Gravity testing with a homemade parachute (sheet (ow!)).
* Inertia testing 101 (train vs tree).
* How much dynamite did it take to fell a tree? (not much).
* Why are elements red? (to support the people who make bandages of course).

I wanted to be either a Ranger, an Astronaut, or a Scientist.

I predict this site will bomb. There appears to be no explosives.

But remember...

[Simon Garlick]

Whatever you do, don't mention climate change or poof! there goes your funding.

NASA Launches Educational Website

[Yvanhoe]

to which orbit ?

What a worthless educational website.

[gameforge]

This is the wrong format to use for teaching basic level content like this. As others have pointed out, it's really easy basic stuff... one of the high-level (5) screens is like "Which of the following gives heat and light to the Earth?" Options: Moon, Sun, or Neptune. Fourth graders?! That's 9 and 10 year olds.

Teaching this stuff isn't that difficult without using a website anyway. My elementary education was sufficient that by sixth grade I was very interested in astronomy, and was able to use the Internet to satisfy my curiosities; there were already flyby pictures of Io (Saturn moon) and from Venera 13 (Soviet Venus Lander), IIRC, on JPL's website in 1994 or 95. I didn't have Internet access in elementary school (and neither did my school), but I do vividly recall some astronomy projects I did in 2nd or 3rd grade; it went a lot deeper than "the sun gives off heat and light to the Earth, but Neptune and the Moon do not".

If NASA wants to get involved in education, they should actually get involved with schools. Think how other effective government sponsored education campaigns for reading & whatnot have worked. Think about how companies like TI, Yamaha, or Apple have gotten involved with math, music & computers. And they manage to make money in schools! Could NASA not benefit from some other funding besides taxpayer dollars? Especially since there's already other taxpayer dollars delegated to education...

Either way, a cheesy flash site with multiple-choice edutrivia is pretty worthless. Saving for telemetry engineers or something would have been a more worthwhile way to spend the money.

Re:STFU Amerinigger

[Bogtha]

I see the NASA story has brought out all the rocket scientists.

NASA Rocket Science 101

[Timesprout]

Lesson 1: How not to confuse Metric and Imperial units

Re:NASA?

[tverbeek]

I don't see "10. Make sure American kids aren't dumbasses when the education system drops the ball" on the list.

That's because it's 0, a prerequisite to make 1-9 possible in the long run.

NASA, stop focusing only on elementary school kids

[Octorian]

That's right... It seems like NASA is full of education initiatives that cater to younger children. Children at that age tend to be easily interested in all sorts of new and exciting things, and don't need NASA's help. The problem is that they'll likely lose any and all interest once they get to an age where they can actually steer their future.

I think NASA should focus much more on grades 9-12, where the goal actually is to prepare oneself for college and ultimately a future career. This is the critical time when we're loosing interest.

Obligatory European Link (ESA)

[Zoxed]

FYI

ESA Kids (in 6 languages :-)

ESA Highschool

BBC site rocks

[SenseOfHumor]

I have personally found the BBC site much better for kids. I have seen my kids playing around arranging planets in solar system and a pretty neat simulation of planets orbiting when you are done. And also their science page is really good for all ages.
When I first saw the planet jigsaw puzzle(the first link), I searched in NASA sites and could not find a single site. Each lab seemed to have a different page of their own but didn't find them interesting.

My kids camp out on the prehistoric games of animal evolution, sea creature etc.,

An effort, but is it useful?

[ErichTheRed]

It's admirable to try to get students interested in science, but I don't think that's going to happen until a major change of some kind occurs. Not that it was ever "cool" to be a smart kid, but it seems like intelligence is more actively discouraged with kids these days. Here's the problems I see with science's image today:

1. Older kids aren't stupid. They see their techie parents losing jobs and having their salaries cut because people half a world away work for a lot less and have a better work ethic in most cases. Given those facts, would you work your butt off in school and grad school for years on end to end up with a low-paying job, if you could find one?

2. Kids also see that getting an MBA or a law degree is an instant ticket to success with much less hard work. Against that, science doesn't have a chance with anyone but the most hardcore types.

3. For whatever reason, schools don't seem to be attracting the world's best teachers. I had some really excellent math and science teachers in my school career who got me interested in the material. Unless you have a really good teacher in an intro. science class, you'll never enjoy the subject.

4. I'm probably going to piss off a lot of people now, but the trend towards religious fundamentalism in the US really hurts science as well. Religion and science don't mix. When enough of the religious crazies get into powerful positions, projects don't get funded. Examples of the problem are the whole evolution debate, stem cell research, etc. Until we get a moderate base of elected officials in office again, this will continue.

I don't know what it will take to fix the problem, but anything that can be done is better than nothing!