NASA program to land in Columbia
Published Feb. 17, 2004
Although Columbia may not be the final frontier for NASA, it will serve as an educational launchpad.
The NASA Educator Resource Center at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau soon will open three new facilities in St. Louis, Kansas City and Columbia.
The current center offers educational resources to local schools, said Jackie Wortmann, coordinator of the NASA Educator Resource Center at SEMO.
The SEMO center is part of a nationwide network of NASA resource centers. There are centers in every state, Wortmann said.
According to NASA's Web site, The Educator Resource Center Network "provides educators with demonstrations of educational technologies such as NASA Spacelink, NASA Television and the NASA Education Homepage."
"We have resources for every type of science," Wortmann said. "We also have technological and math resources because math is very important to science."
The primary facility in Cape Girardeau opened in November 1999 with the help of a federal grant, and is opening offices around the state to promote the original location's resources and to offer the resources to a wider area, Wortmann said.
The Columbia NASA facility will be housed in the College of Education's Heart of Missouri Regional Professional Development Center, MU spokesman Jeff Neu said.
"I believe they were looking at population centers when choosing where to open offices," Professional Development Center Director Paul Pitchford said. "Columbia is the center of the state and is therefore the midpoint for many rural schools that would otherwise not have access to these resources."
Pitchford said the new resource center could open as early as March or as late as June, depending on how soon a resource person is hired.
"I anticipate the person hired will be a science educator," he said. "This person will have to be a good teacher who can also help other teachers come up with creative ideas to use the information provided by the center."
"The office here will help educators access resources from the larger center and also help identify new resources," he said.
Pitchford said the program will provide a lot of useful information to schools that might not have been able to access it before.
"NASA's view of the world is very unique," Wortmann said. "This provides a wonderful opportunity for teachers to share that with students."
The program will connect students to science through real-life projects, Pitchford said.
"The best kind of education is the kind that focuses on practical experience," he said.