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"ONLINE FROM JUPITER"
U P D A T E # 2 7
PART 1: Galileo
fact of the day
PART 2: New Galileo
images
PART 3: Web chats
scheduled for Thursdays
PART 4: Other opportunities
to connect with NASA
PART 5: Asking the
Galileo team your questions
FACT OF THE DAY
(see http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/fact
for a complete list)
Using Galileo's onboard instruments to observe the asteroid Gaspra
was a challenge somewhat akin to attempting to spot the Goodyear
Blimp through a soda straw from five miles away, while sitting in
a car going 90 mph.
NEW GALILEO IMAGES
Ron Baalke reports that some new Galileo images are available on
the Galileo home page. The new images are artist's renderings of
the Galileo mission, most of them by Michael Carroll.
Please Web-journey to http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/artist.html
WEB CHATS SCHEDULED FOR THURSDAYS
I'm hoping to re institute a regularly scheduled chat time.
For now, I plan to loiter in our WebChat area on Thursdays
from 3:00-4:30pm Pacific time. The address is
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/galileo/webchat/chat.html
My goal is to gather some feedback from folks about this project
or to address some of your concerns. I'm particularly interested in
chatting with teachers who may have used some of this material
with their classes, but everybody is invited. Please try to join me if
you can. Thanks, Marc
Other opportunities to connect with NASA
As Online from Jupiter begins to wind down (we hope to revive the project
later in the Galileo mission, so stay tuned), there are other opportunities
for you to connect with NASA's people and projects.
Live From the Hubble Space Telescope (LHST) is the latest chance to peak
behind the scenes at NASA. LHST will follow the folks who research with
and operate the world's most powerful optical telescope. But this time,
we won't just be watching....we'll be participating in the mission. For the
first time ever, the Space Telescope Science Institute has dedicated three
full orbits (~4.5 hours) of telescope time towards the K-12 community.
In December, students and educators debated what object to observe with
our precious HST time. Together we reached a consensus that Pluto and
Neptune would be our targets. When the data comes down, it will belong
to us. In addition, Professor Reta Beebe donated an additional orbit from
her scheduled research for us to study Jupiter. Now, the Hubble Space
Telescope crew is busily preparing for these orbits.
In addition, since this project is led by the Passport to Knowledge team,
we'll also be providing live television coverage of some events as well
as a 48-page Teacher's Guide to help educators integrate the HST events
into their classrooms.
To join us on this learning adventure, please send an email message to:
listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov
In the message body, write only these words:
subscribe updates-hst
Or visit our continuous construction Web site at
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/livefrom/hst.html
To make sure that you stay informed about future opportunities (our
fingers are crossed for Shuttle-MIR and Mars Pathfinder), please sign
up for our project announcement list. To do this, send email to:
listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov
In the message body, write only these words:
subscribe sharing-nasa
We hope that together we'll find ever-better ways to make NASA
-YOUR- space agency.
Asking the Galileo team your questions
The capability to send Email questions to the men and women of the Galileo
team will remain available until February 14,1996. This is a two week extension
of the dates originally announced. We are grateful to the Galileo folks
for generously volunteering their time to support this service. This section
will describe some guidelines and procedures for the process. K-12 students
and educators can Email questions to researchers, engineers and support
staff. This interaction will be supported by a "Smart Filter" which protects
the professional from Internet overload by acting as a buffer. The actual
Email addresses of these experts will remain unlisted. Also, repetitive
questions will be answered from an accumulating database of replies; thus
the valued interaction with the experts will be saved for original questions.
(More information about how you can directly search this database will follow
later). Tips for asking good questions Each and every expert is excited
about connecting with classrooms. But it is important to remember that the
time and energy of these researchers is extremely valuable. If possible,
please review the materials available online to gain an overall understanding
of the basics. It would be best to ask questions that are not easily answered
elsewhere. For example, "What does the Galileo spacecraft do?" would not
be an appropriate question. We recognize that this creates a gray area about
whether or not a question is appropriate. Simply use your best judgment.
Since the main idea is to excite students about the wonders of science and
research, please err on the side of having the students participate. If
you are not sure whether or not to send a question, send it. Ideally, the
act of sending questions will further engage the student in their learning.
It may help to think back to an early stage of development when the 3 year
old learns that repeating the word "why" can get parents to do most of the
work in a conversation The wise parent will try to get child involvement
by asking "why do you want to know?". The same is true in the classroom.
Teachers might want to help students learn to ask good questions. Here are
three questions the students might ask themselves as they submit their questions:
What do I want to know? Is this information to be found in a resource I
could easily check (such as a school encyclopedia)? Why do I want to know
it? ("What will I do with the information?" or "How will I use what I learn?")
The last question is the most interesting. Student reflection on why they
want to know something is a very valuable learning experience. Logistics
of sending in questions (address and format) Questions will be accepted
from November 20, 1995 through February 14, 1996. To submit a question during
these times, mail it to the following Email address: question-jup@quest.arc.nasa.gov.
We will acknowledge and answer all questions as quickly as possible. Our
goal is to provide a basic acknowledgment immediately. In most cases we
should be able to provide an answer within ten days to two weeks, sometimes
quicker In the subject field, please put the letters "QA:" before a descriptive
subject. Also, provide a sentence of background information to help the
experts understand the grade level of your students. The following example
should illustrate this idea. TO: question-jup@quest.arc.nasa.gov FROM: your
Email address SUBJECT: QA: Making Galileo Hello, I am a sixth grader from
Walla Walla, Washington. In your recent report I read that Galileo has been
flying for 6 years. Before that , how long did it take to make the spacecraft?
Thanks, Dora Lopez One question per message If you or your class have several
questions which are unrelated, we ask that you please send each unrelated
question in a separate Email message rather than as one message with many
different questions. While this may be inconvenient, it is important because
it will help us to keep track of the questions and ensure that no question
remains unanswered. Messages that do not follow this request will be unnecessarily
delayed as we go through the extra step of splitting up the messages ourselves.
Twenty question limit Any individual teacher will be limited to submitting
a total of twenty (20) questions during the life of the project. Hopefully
this will encourage more classroom discussion about what students want to
know and will lead to research done before asking questions. Browsing answers
to questions already asked An archive of question/answer pairs of previously
asked questions will be maintained. This archive is readily available at
this URL: gopher://quest.arc.nasa.gov:70/11/interactive-projects/jupiter/QA
Searching question/answer pairs A capability to search for interesting question/answer
pairs is also available. The system relies on the user choosing one or more
keywords related to their interest. Every existing question/answer pair
will be searched to see if it contains the keywords. Visit this Web page
to try it out: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/galileo/gal-qa-wais.pl
Receiving all question/answer pairs as they get created A capability has
been set up for those people that would like to receive ongoing Email with
answers to all of the questions asked. Each night, one mail message will
be sent to those interested. This message will contain a copy of every question/answer
pair generated that day. If you are interested in this feature, send an
Email to: listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov Leave the subject blank and in
the message body, write the words: subscribe answers-jup
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