For Release: April 21,1998

Kathy Barnstorff
757 864-9886

Dr. Thom Pinelli
757 864-2491

Release No.: 98-019

Live, Interactive TV Show Airs April 23
NASA "CONNECT" LINKS STUDENTS TO ASTRONAUT GLENN

Elementary and middle school students in Hampton Roads and across the country will tune into a space-age math and science lesson this week with the help of a tv set, phone, computer, public television and Hampton's NASA Langley Research Center.

From its studios Langley will air a live half-hour broadcast called "CONNECT" at 10:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., Thursday. The program will be beamed by microwave and satellite, through the studios of WHRO-TV, to schools in 40 states. Students from Toano Middle School in James City County and Yorktown Elementary School in York County are featured in the broadcast.

Host Shelley Canright from the Langley Office of Education will lead viewers through an investigation of microgravity. One of the segments includes a taped interview with the first astronaut to orbit the earth, Ohio Senator John Glenn. Glenn is slated to return to space for the first time in 36 years in October on the shuttle, Discovery.

Another taped segment will explore the "G" forces felt on roller coasters at Busch Gardens outside Williamsburg. In the studio to talk about the properties of microgravity will be researchers from Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Students watching will be able to call in and ask questions of the researchers and participate in a computer on-line rocket launch simulation.

To make arrangements to go to one of the two schools directly involved please call Amy Carlini, Williamsburg-James City County Schools, at 253-6759, or Betsy Overkamp Smith, York County Schools, at 898-0391. The program featuring the James City middle schoolers will air at 10:00 a.m. The younger York students will be on at 1:30 p.m. To view the program from the studios of the NASA Langley Research Center please call Kathy Barnstorff or Dr. Thom Pinelli.

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