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Penn State Public Broadcasting brings space science into classrooms Distance education is ‘out of this world’ By Annemarie Mountz Associate editor, Intercom
“We produced ‘What’s in the News’ shows on the NASA Neurolab mission to demonstrate that people can become involved in the space program without becoming astronauts.” Kimberlie Kranich Howard Pillot has been a sixth-grade teacher at Park Forest Middle School for six years. As part of the science curriculum, his students study space science. This year, they conducted four experiments that were replicated by astronauts aboard Space Shuttle Columbia. The students shared their results with the astronauts and other fourth, fifth and sixth graders across the United States through the “What’s in the News”/Neurolab Web site at http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ neuron/video/index.html. Nakia Ford (left) and Juliana Kim help Tyler Szczesny do a headstand to test the connection between the heart and body position. The sixth graders at Park Forest Middle School in State College, Pa., conducted the experiment as part of the “What’s in the News”/NASA Neurolab project. Ford and Kim measured Szczesny’s pulse during and after the headstand. Students predicted astronauts’ pulse rates would be lower in zero gravity, because they believe astronauts’ hearts will not have to work as hard. Sixth graders at Park Forest Middle School record the results of an experiment for the “What’s in the News”/NASA Neurolab project. Shown, from left, are David Hutchinson, William Pirrone-Brusse, Whiskie Garrett, Alexandra Beddall, Hanna Xu and Stephen Selego.	“What’s in the News,” a current events program produced by Penn State Public Broadcasting and seen by a third of all fourth- through sixth-grade classrooms nationwide, is bringing space science into the classroom.   Katie O’Toole, writer and host of the program, invited viewers to participate in four science experiments that correspond directly to experiments performed during the Neurolab space shuttle mission in April.   The shuttle crew included Payload Specialist James A. Pawelczyk, assistant professor of physiology and kinesiology at Penn State. He has been involved in the “What’s in the News” project from the very beginning.   Pawelczyk and six crew members spent 16 days in space working on research on the nervous system and behavior. Their goal is to increase the understanding of the mechanisms responsible for neural and behavioral changes in space.   One of two mission specialists, Pawelczyk has studied irregularities in blood pressure control associated with deconditioning. Many astronauts experience problems with blood pressure after returning from a flight, and some crew members have reported bouts of dizziness and unsteadiness for several hours after returning to Earth. To determine the cause of these changes, some of the experiments conducted aboard Neurolab used the astronauts themselves as subjects.   “What’s in the News” viewers who completed their experiments, were asked to record their results and mail them back to the “What’s in the News” studio at WPSX-TV on the University Park campus.   Kimberlie Kranich, former WPSX-TV producer/director, met with Pawelczyk in Houston in 1997 to select four experiments from the 26 that were be conducted for parallel ground experiments. She and a WPSX video team also taped Pawelczyk in the training mock-up of Neurolab doing introductions to the experiments and explaining what he would be doing on the mission and why.   “He has a real knack for putting things into kids’ terms,” O’Toole said. “Even though he is a scientist, he explains things in a way that children can understand, so they get excited about what’s going on.”   “What’s in the News” produced eight segments for the weekly TV series. The first segment, with Pawelczyk as host, provided an overview of the Neurolab mission. Three segments focused on some of the people behind the scenes at NASA whose professions are critical to the success of Neurolab—a nutritionist, a meteorologist and an aerospace engineer. The remaining four segments demonstrated the experiments included in the kits.   “We did this to demonstrate that people can become involved in the space program without becoming astronauts,” Kranich said.   Park Forest Middle School in State College, Pa., is one of four schools chosen by Neurolab mission specialists to take part in the project. Students in Howard Pillot’s sixth-grade class conducted all four experiments.   “When the data is sent back to the show, we will get the results from one of the four experiments,” Pillot said. “The students will tabulate the data, interpret it and form some conclusions. Then we’ll put the data into charts and graphs and share them with WPSX. It was great to turn on the TV and see the astronauts and know you have a connection to what they’re doing—it’s a powerful motivator for students.”   The kits explain the science behind the experiments, include guides for the teachers and detail how what the astronauts were doing related to what students were doing on the ground. Participation was not limited to formal classrooms. “What’s in the News” sent out about 1,000 kits.   Schools that did not receive the TV news program could collaborate with the Ames Research Center, which set up a Web site for the Neurolab mission. The site includes a video section, http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/neuron/video/index.html, which explained the “What’s in the News” project and made available a tape of the show’s Neurolab segments. The site also included descriptions of the experiments and a link to the “What’s in the News” Web site at http://www.outreach.psu.edu/EdComm/WITNweb/.
Dr. James A. Pawelczyk, assistant professor of physiology and kinesiology at Penn State, is guiding budding scientists in fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms around the nation in a series of four experiments designed to learn more about how the human nervous system operates in zero gravity environments. Pawelczyk was a payload specialist for the NASA Space Shuttle Columbia’s Neurolab mission.	Penn State students talk live with astronaut   Penn State undergraduate and graduate students interested in the effect of microgravity on neural function talked live with Dr. James A. Pawelczyk, assistant professor of physiology and kinesiology at Penn State, as he circled Earth as a payload specialist on Space Shuttle Columbia. He conducted experiments during the 16-day Neurolab Mission.   Noll Physiological Research Center in the College of Health and Human Development and Penn State Public Broadcasting’s WPSX-TV arranged for a 15-minute satellite downlink from the Space Shuttle to University Park campus to enable Penn State students to talk with Pawelczyk. Students in the Physiological Adaptations to Stress course, as well as students from kinesiology, biology, chemistry, and agricultural sciences at University Park and students studying cellular and molecular physiology at the Hershey Medical Center participated.   The 15-minute segment will form the introduction for a distance education course on the physiological aspects of the nervous system function in space. Penn State will develop the course following the shuttle mission, according to Dr. Peter A. Farrell, professor of physiology and interim director of the Noll Center. Dartmouth College, North Carolina State University and York University in Toronto also are interested in participating in developing the course.