Train With NASA From the Comfort of Home

Looking for something to keep you sane during quarantine? Why not use this extra time to start studying everything from rocket launches to hovercrafts with the International Space Stations US National Laboratory?

 

“We know many students are learning at home right now, and hands-on activities are especially important to keep students engaged and learning,” the ISS’s website reads. “Our network of ISS partners has pulled together dozens of no-cost activities for the whole family.” 

 

The online learning courses explore “science subjects spanning human health to robotics, math and physics, with suitable challenges broken down by age range,” IFLScience.com reports. 

 

Featured activities include Space Station Explorers STEM Guide “that includes hands-on, space-themed learning activities for students in grades 3-8… [that] align with national education standards for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics”; the ExoLab Biological Design Challenge which allows students the chance to help select plants that will be sent to the International Space State in the fall for the ExoLab-8 research mission; and Story Time From Space where viewers can watch and read alongside the American, British, French, and Japanese astronauts who read children’s books from onboard the International Space Station. 

 

Dan Barstow, the ISS National Lab Education Manager writes in a blog post that the goal of these learn-at-home opportunities is that they “inspire hope”. “I think the educational activities from ISS National Lab partners convey a subtle but deep message – astronauts see the world from space and want to share its beauty and its wholeness,” he writes. 

 

“Maybe through this work, in this dark time, we can do our contribution to help young people feel hope…”