NASA education and educational technologies exemplified by the Space Weather Action Center Program

Abstract

We explore here the Space Weather Action Center (SWAC) Program, as an example of NASA initiatives in education. Many human activities in space can be disrupted by space weather. The main objective of this program is to enable students to produce space weather forecasts by accessing current NASA data. Implementation of the SWAC Program requires: technological resources, online materials, and systematic work. Instructional guides, materials and methods are explained on the Space Weather Action Center Web site (http://sunearthday.nasa. gov/swac). Ultimately, students' forecasts can be presented through a variety of accessible media including inexpensive video editing software and/or already existing school-based broadcast studios. This cross-curricular program is targeted to middle and high school and can be applied in almost all educational contexts as the number of schools with computer and internet access increases worldwide. SWAC is a pioneer initiative that contributes to fostering student interest in STEM and promotes their intellectual autonomy. Through SWAC, they get to act like real scientists by accessing, analyzing, recording, and communicating space weather forecasts in a professional approach. © 2009 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.