The Sun-Earth CONNECTION
An Education and Public Outreach Newsletter 
for the Sun-Earth Connection Science Community - and beyond!
Volume I, Issue 1, 20 July 2000

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Table of Contents

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1. Welcome Message from Rich Vondrak and Isabel Hawkins 
2. Newsletter Sponsor Information – Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum 
3. Space Weather Center Science Museum Traveling Exhibit Opens 
4. What is the Upcoming Space Science Education Resource Catalog?
5. Goddard helps NASA/National Science Teachers Association To Train 
    NASA Educator Workshop Participants
6. Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) Team Members Attend 
    Training on Newly-released Technology Standards
7. Illinois Teachers Successfully Collaborate with Goddard Scientists
8. Welcome New Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum Member Troy Cline
9. How to Contact Us
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1. Message from our fearless leaders

Dear Readers,

We would like to introduce you to the first issue of The Sun-Earth CONNECTION Newsletter, sponsored 
by the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF). This is an Education and Public Outreach (EPO) 
newsletter for the Sun-Earth Connection science community and others interested in EPO. Our goal is to keep 
you informed about the latest events and activities for educators and the public, and to give you a chance to 
contribute notices about your accomplishments in the realm of education and public outreach. On behalf of the 
Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum staff at Goddard Space Flight Center and UC Berkeley, we welcome 
you to our newsletter. Please send us your feedback! 

Rich Vondrak and Isabel Hawkins
GSFC UC Berkeley
Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum Co-Directors

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2. Newsletter Sponsor Information – Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum
An integral element of the Office of Space Science (OSS) education and public outreach strategy is the 
establishment of a network for space science to foster a wide variety of education and public outreach 
activities. This network of institutions include (1) four Education Forums that serve as major centers for 
space science education and public outreach in each of the four OSS Themes, and (2) a set of regional 
Broker/Facilitators who, for example, help arrange collaborations between scientists and the education 
community. The Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) is a partnership led by Goddard 
Space Flight Center and UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory. To learn more about SECEF 
and the Office of Space Science Education and Public Outreach program, go to
 http://spacescience.nasa.gov/education/ecosystem.htm

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3. The Space Weather Center Traveling Exhibit opened in February 2000 at the Denver 
Museum of Natural History. The modular, 600-ft. exhibit combines interactive, hands-on 
elements with near-real-time imagery, news, and data from current Sun-Earth Connection 
NASA missions. The Space Weather Center integrates several Sun-Earth Connection themes: 
the Dynamic Sun; Earth Within the Solar Atmosphere; and Earth Responds to Changing Sun. 
The exhibit is expected to reach 700,000 visitors per year. Twenty-one additional museums 
are interested in hosting the Space Weather Center. It will appear next at Maryland Science
Center, in Baltimore, MD, followed by the Discovery Museum in Sacramento, CA. Partners 
involved in creating  the exhibit include the missions ACE, ISTP, SOHO, and IMAGE, the 
SUNBEAMS program, the Space Science Institute, NASA’s Sun-Earth Connection Education 
Forum (SECEF), and the National Science Foundation.

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4. The NASA Space Science Educators’ Resource Catalog will be launched in October 2000. 
An on-line directory, it is designed to provide enhanced access of major space-science-related 
education products to educators, space scientists, and the public. In other words, it will be a 
website for educators and others to find space science educational resources, via a database 
accessible through the WWW. It has a user-friendly search interface and “speaks the language” 
of other educational databases, such as Spacelink, the US Department of Education’s Gateway 
to Educational Materials - GEM, and the Eisenhower Clearinghouse. The Sun-Earth Connection 
Education Forum (GSFC and UCB) and the Origins Education Forum (STScI) are collaborating 
together to develop this CATALOG. The CATALOG will be available this Fall!

THE CATALOG WILL SERVE EDUCATORS! 

THE CATALOG WILL SERVE NASA SPACE SCIENCE MISSIONS & PRODUCT DEVELOPERS!

THE CATALOG WILL GIVE VISIBILITY for your products!

° The long-term vision for the CATALOG is that developers need only register their products once 
in the database. Product information can then be automatically output to multiple venues including 
Spacelink, the US Department of Education’s GEM, Eisenhower, Yahoo and other commercial 
search engines, and numerous spin-off paper catalogs. Educators will be able to use multiple access 
points to find space science resources easily.

° The CATALOG will enable product developers to identify needs for new resources. For example, 
they will see at a glance what space science products exist for the elementary grades. A list of topics 
will also help developers brainstorm new grade-appropriate resources. 

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5. This July, GSFC folks are helping NASA/NSTA train the NEW (NASA Educator Workshop) 
participants. Educators get a chance to participate in NASA’s state-of-the art research and 
development, teaming up with NASA scientists, engineers, technicians, and educational 
specialists. Follow-up workshops help teachers adapt their new knowledge, experience 
and materials to their specific educational situations, and to align the information with national 
educational standards in science, mathematics, and technology. 

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6. This month, SECEF team members from Berkeley and Goddard are participating in the 
International Technology Education Association (ITEA) training at Goddard and NASA 
Ames Research Center. ITEA is promoting "Standards for Technological Literacy: Content 
for the Study of Technology." You can download the entire document or its executive summary 
in pdf from http://www.iteawww.org/TAA/TAA.html, or order a hardcopy from ITEA, (703)860-2100.

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7. Illinois teachers enjoyed a successful partnership with Goddard Space Flight Center in 
July, 2000. Office of Space Science Broker/Facilitator DePaul University reports that 
teachers were very impressed and happy with their week at Goddard (July 2000). 
In a final evaluation, they were asked to describe the one thing about the (two-week) 
program they thought went particularly well. The majority cited the contact with scientists. 
A typical reply was "The connections with the scientists and the accessibility of information 
from them was terrific!" At their final session, the teachers made it clear that they want to 
continue being involved, at multiple levels, in space science education efforts. 

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8. Please join us in welcoming Troy Cline, the new Science Education Specialist of Goddard’s 
Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum team. Before coming to Goddard, Troy was a science 
and math teacher in Virginia, working with ‘at-risk’ students. His teaching career has taken 
him to some exceptional places. His first teaching experience was on the Navajo Indian 
Reservation in Kinlichee, AZ. He worked in a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school for 
three years, teaching elementary students. Troy then joined the Peace Corps and served in 
Chad, Africa, where he taught Algebra and Geometry in a hut made of elephant grass. At that 
time, the government was attempting to integrate a working educational system so that as 
the country became more developed, an effective structure would already be in place. Troy 
later taught science in Maryland and math in Virginia. The SECEF team will benefit from his 
diverse experience! See more on Troy (including pictures from his Peace Corps experience) at
 http://home.att.net/~tdresume/culture.htm 

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9. How to Contact Us:

The Sun-Earth CONNECTION Education and Public Outreach Newsletter is issued approximately monthly. 
Back issues can be found at <http://sunearth.ssl.berkeley.edu/SECNews/>