03-042
For Release: July 2, 2003

Sally V. Harrington
Media Relations Office
216/433-2037
Sally.V.Harrington@nasa.gov

Local Schools Involved in New Education Initiative Launched by NASA

Five teams of schools in the six-state region served by NASA's Glenn Research Center are among the 50 school teams selected for a new NASA Explorer Schools Program recently announced by NASA. They are Lorain Middle School in Lorain, Ohio; Joyce Kilmer Elementary School in Chicago, Ill.; Southfield High School, partnering with Glenn Levey Middle School and Morris Adler Elementary School, all in Southfield, Mich.; Crossroads Elementary School in St. Paul, Minn. and Anwatin Middle School, partnering with Bryn Mawr, in Minneapolis, Minn.

"NASA's mission is to inspire the next generation of explorers," said Jo Ann Charleston, chief of Glenn's Educational Programs Office. "The NASA Explorer Schools Program provides us with yet another opportunity to fulfill our mission while making learning science, mathematics, geography and technology more fun."

Teachers from the schools in Glenn's region will attend a workshop at Glenn July 19-25 to spark innovative ideas for instruction directed specifically at students in grades 5 through 8. During the workshop, they will acquire new teaching resources and technology tools using NASA's unique content and experts to make learning science, mathematics, geography and technology more appealing to students.

NASA Associate Administrator for Education Dr. Adena Williams Loston announced the program at the National Educational Computing Conference in Seattle. The new initiative, sponsored by NASA's Education Enterprise in collaboration with the National Science Teachers Association, establishes a three-year partnership between NASA and 50 Explorer Schools teams, consisting of teachers and education administrators from diverse communities across the country. Eighty percent of the school teams are located in high-poverty areas, with 75 percent in predominantly minority communities. Fifty-eight percent of the competitively selected school teams are located in both high poverty and high minority districts.

You can read more about the program at: http://explorerschools.nasa.gov

Further information about Glenn's Educational Programs Office is at: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/OEP

For information about other NASA education programs, visit: http://education.nasa.gov

# # #

text-only version of this release

NASA Glenn Research Center news releases are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to:
grc-subscribe@newsletters.nasa.gov
Leave the subject and body blank. The system will reply with a confirmation via e-mail of each subscription. You must reply to that message to begin your subscription.
To unsubscribe, address an e-mail message to:
grc-unsubscribe@newsletters.nasa.gov
Leave the subject and body blank.