Students from Travis Middle School in Port Lavaca, Texas, will have a rare opportunity Thursday to chat with the crew of the International Space Station. Students will chat with Space Station commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA Station Science Officer Ed Lu, as they orbit 240 miles above the Earth.

More than 800 students and teachers at Travis will participate, and more than 3,400 in Texas and Mississippi will be listening. The event runs from 2:03 to 2:22 p.m. CST. It will be aired live on NASA TV, available on AMC-9, transponder 9C, C-Band, 85 degrees west longitude. The frequency is 3880.0 MHz. Polarization is vertical, and audio is monaural at 6.80 MHz.

This event is part of NASA's Middle School Aerospace Scholars Program. The program is funded by Texas and administered by NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC). Middle school teachers gather for a one-week workshop at JSC, which includes tours, briefings and instruction on using online NASA resources and materials in their classroom curriculum.

The live interaction with the crew can help students envision career possibilities resulting from studying science, technology, engineering and math. The program is part of a series with education organizations and is an integral component of NASA's Teaching from Space Program (TSP). TSP enables education opportunities and builds partnerships through the unique environment of human space flight, NASA research and educational technology.

For information about NASA's Teaching from Space Program on the Internet, visit: http://education.jsc.nasa.gov/Educators/tfsp.htm

For information about NASA Education programs on the Internet, visit: http://education.nasa.gov

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