NITARP for 2022 is now available! It's available at our website: (Link)

NITARP, the NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program, gets teachers involved in authentic astronomical research. We partner small groups of educators with a mentor professional astronomer for an original research project. The educators incorporate the experience into their classrooms and share their experience with other teachers. The program runs January through January. Applications for the 2022 class of educators are available now and due on Monday, September 13, 2021. The program is funded completely via NASA ADAP, and is contingent on the availability of funding.

Some things that make our program different from many (if not most) other astronomy programs for educators: (1) Each team does original research using real astronomical data, not canned labs or reproductions of previously done research; (2) Each team writes up the results of their research and presents it in a science poster session at an American Astronomical Society meeting (the AAS is the professional organization for astronomers in the US). The posters are distributed throughout the meeting, in amongst other researchers' work; the participants are not "given a free pass" because they are educators and students. Each team also presents the educational results of their experience in the program. (3) The program runs over 13 months, not just a few days or weeks. (4) Teachers are encouraged to involve their students from the beginning of the program.

Most of our educators are high school classroom educators, but 8th grade, community college, and informal educators have participated as well. The kinds of educators we are looking for are those who already know the basics of astronomy, and are interested in learning exactly how astronomy research is conducted. All educators must be US-based.

This program involves three trips — to an American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in January 2022, to Pasadena, CA in summer 2022, and to the AAS meeting in January 2023. The January 2021 meeting is in Salt Lake City, UT; the January 2022 meeting is in Seattle, WA.

While most of the work on these teams is done remotely using video conferencing and other online collaboration tools, the structure of the program heavily relies on three different face-to-face visits, necessarily requiring interstate travel and meeting in groups. If the January 2022 AAS meeting is held online because of the pandemic, we may not be able to have a NITARP class of 2022. We will monitor the situation closely and inform applicants of progress as decision points come up.

The application itself consists of short answers to a few questions. We release the questions in May so that you have time both to hear about the program and to get started writing; the website to which you need to upload your PDF answers will be available no later than early August. Please let us know if you wish to be explicitly notified via email when the site is open for submissions.

For more information, please see website ( Link ), or if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at our central email, nitarp@ipac.caltech.edu.

Direct link to the PDF application instructions is here: (Link)

NASA gives all of its missions a special logo / patch. As a way to connect Kansas students grades 6-12 with a new project headquartered in Kansas, Wichita State University, a partner with NASA in the new S.N.A.P.P.Y. (Solar Neutrino and Particle PhYsics) CubeSat mission, invites students to submit their ideas for a patch.

The winning entrant will have the honor of the design being turned into an official patch which will be flown into space.

The winner’s patch will be on the CubeSat and its rocket as well as be worn by the project crew at NASA during Mission Control Operations. The patch will also be displayed at the WSU Science Control Room for a year. WSU Physics is the lead university for this project. The Fairmount Center for Science and Math Education and the Ad Astra Kansas Foundation are assisting. Entries due by Nov. 12, winner announced Dec. 15.

The S.N.A.P.P.Y. mission will send a mini-satellite with a neutrino detector into the Low Earth Orbit to test its ability to operate in space. Neutrinos are tiny elementary particles that can tell us a lot about our universe. This mission could be an important step towards a bigger spacecraft to go close to the Sun to detect and study neutrinos.

Submission form /Information link: NASAMissionpatchcontest.pdf (adastra-ks.org)

Celebrate trees by joining the GLOBE citizen science community in the 2021 Community Trees Challenge, where Science is Better Together!

Who can participate: Everyone! (students and teachers at all grade levels, informal educators, and the public in GLOBE countries.) While getting out and taking observations might not be possible for everyone, this challenge provides multiple ways to participate and learn all about trees.

How to participate: During the 2021 Community Trees Challenge, the GLOBE Program is asking citizen scientists to observe, learn, engage, and create as they track their progress on the Trees Challenge Activity Tracker. You can choose the best journey for your interests, or try to complete all the activities. Work together as a family, as a group of friends, or independently.

By completing these activities, you will improve your science observation skills, enrich your understanding of trees as part of our landscape, learn why NASA studies trees, be a part of a NASA-sponsored citizen science project, as well as join a citizen science community. Your observations of tree height contribute to a global database that is free and open so that anyone – scientists, students, communities, and citizen scientists – can conduct research.

Challenge Overview: The NASA TechRise Student Challenge invites teams of sixth to 12th-grade students to design, build, and launch experiments on NASA-supported test flights. Guided by an educator, student teams affiliated with U.S. public, private, and charter schools can submit ideas for experiments to test on either a suborbital rocket with about three minutes of microgravity (i.e., weightlessness) or a high-altitude balloon with exposure to Earth’s atmosphere and views of our planet. A panel of judges will review the submitted experiment ideas and select 57 winning entries. Each winning team will receive $1,500 to build their experiment and an assigned spot to test it on a NASA-sponsored suborbital flight operated by one of the following flight providers –Blue Origin, UP Aerospace, or Raven Aerostar.

CHALLENGE EXPLAINER VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x3_b_OvJeA

CHALLENGE WEBSITE: https://www.futureengineers.org/nasatechrise

KEY DATES:

●Entries due: November 3, 2021

●Winners Announced & Experiment Build Begins: January 21, 2022

●Experiment Build Period: Spring/Summer 2022

●Experiments Launch: Early 2023

WHO CAN ENTER: This is a challenge for SCHOOLS in the United States.US public, private, or charter schools that serve 6th to 12th grade students can assemble a team (or multiple teams) and enter. Minimum 4 students per team. No Maximum number of students per team. Proposals must be submitted by a team lead that is a teacher or employee of the school.

WHO CAN VOLUNTEER TO JUDGE: US residents (18+) with expertise in engineering, space, and/or atmospheric research who would like to volunteer approximately 5 hours of their time can register to judge HERE

Session 1 – Thursday, November 4 at 5:00pm ET / 2:00pm PT

Life on Venus? Clues From Bacterial Evolution – What can bacterial evolution and adaptation on Earth teach us in our search for life in outer space? Join genetics researcher Jaime Cordova and science teacher Michael Hirsch as they explore how extreme life on Earth may inform our hypothesis of life on the 2nd rock from the Sun.

Session 2 – Thursday, November 4 at 8:00 pm ET / 5:00pm PT

Aurora Borealis: Nature’s Electromagnetic Light Show – We know that auroras happen and they are spectacular, but what causes these silent sky symphonies? Join physicist Jim Schroeder and geoscience educator Laura Hollister as they explore the flow of energy from space that causes auroras.

RSVP (Link)

The Stockholm Junior Water Prize (SJWP) is the most prestigious youth award in the world for a water-related science project. The prize taps into the unlimited potential of today’s high school students as they seek to address our water challenges. The competition is open to any high school student in grades 9-12 who are 15 years of age by August 1st of the competition year. All research papers must be uploaded online no later than April 15th of each year to compete in their state’s competition. All state winners will receive an all-expenses paid trip to the SJWP National Competition. The national winner will receive $10,000 and an all-expenses paid trip to Stockholm, Sweden to participate in the SJWP International Competition

The U.S. Stockholm Junior Water Prize competition, which is celebrating its 25th year in 2022, is made possible through a collaborative effort between the Water Environment Federation and its local Member Associations (MAs) across the country. Each state competition is sponsored by an MA and has a designated state organizer. Each state identifies and sends a winner (or winning team) to the U.S. national competition which is currently held the second week of June at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Do you have a high school student that would like to participate in this competition and have a chance to win a trip to North Carolina next summer? Please have them contact Becky Lewis for paper ideas and more information. For more information about the Stockholm Junior Water Prize, go the website: http://www.wef.org/SJWP/ or contact Becky Lewis – 316-303-8702 or rlewis@wichita.gov.

Vernier is celebrating its 40th anniversary by awarding 40 grants to STEM educators. Each grant includes $1,000 in Vernier technology, a one-year license for Vernier Graphical Analysis™ Pro, and virtual professional development. Applications are due Friday, November 5!

Applicants must be educators who are actively teaching in an educational institution within the United States. Grants will be awarded based on purpose and need of request. Grant requests must be endorsed by the building administrator or department head.

All applications are due November 5, 2021. Grantees will be announced December 8, 2021. (APPLY HERE)

Planning is underway for the 2022 KidWind Challenge, which we hope will be the best yet! In previous years, we hosted only one or two teacher workshops to assist teachers participating in KidWind for the first time. This year, we’re going big – we plan to host a wind energy workshop in each of the six regions we will be conducting the KidWind Challenge. We have confirmed five of the six workshops and are still working on the last one. All workshops are scheduled for approximately 9:00am-3:00pm. See below for dates and locations:

• Northcentral (Manhattan): Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021, K-State Engineering Extension, Unger Complex, 2323 Anderson Avenue (third floor), Manhattan, KS 66502

• Northeast (Ozawkie): Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021, Keystone Learning Services, 500 East Sunflower Boulevard, Ozawkie, KS 66070

• Southcentral (Hutchinson): Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021, ESSDACK, 1500 E 11th Avenue #200, Hutchinson, KS 67501

• Southwest (Dodge City): Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021, USD 443 Dodge City Public Schools, 2112 First Avenue, Dodge City, KS 67801

• Northwest (Oakley): Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021, Northwest Kansas Educational Service Center, 703 West Second Street, Oakley, KS 67748

• Southeast: To be determined

All of the regional KidWind Challenge dates and locations are confirmed (check out the map below)! We have never been this far ahead in our planning process, so we feel pretty good about that. We are still working to confirm the date and location of the statewide KidWind Challenge. Make sure to add these events to your calendar – registration coming soon!