Mission Geography Exploring Earth's Environment and Society
Good geography, good science, good teaching, good learning, using NASA as a vehicle. From Earth space to outer space. . .

The National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) is collaborating with the Geography Education National Implementation Project (GENIP) and its constituent organizations, on a project called Mission Geography. The goal is to produce a series of three publications linking the skills and content of Geography for Life: National Geography Standards with NASA's missions and results.

The project addresses the critical national need to improve the quality of both science and geography education and literacy. This need is especially acute in the areas of physical geography and environment-society relations because an informed citizenry is vital for confronting issues related to global environmental change and economic, political, and social change related to resource scarcity.

Importance of Geography Standards
Mission Geography is about geography and using geography's skills and perspectives and NASA's unique missions and results to address curricular needs. We need to be sure that the focus remains on Standards-based geography, and that geography drives the creation of the units, not NASA programs. As we work I am sure we can find ideal topics which connect geography and NASA missions and initiatives and which meet equally well the needs of geography education and NASA.

Importance of Geography Skills
The three publications, Mission Geography K-4, Mission Geography 5-8, and Mission Geography 9-12, will contain curriculum support materials focused on the development of key grade-level-appropriate geography skills including remote sensing and map/image interpretation. This three-year project will use existing NASA data and images where possible and engage students in active, "hands-on" inquiry, modeling the scientific method and developing students' understandings of environment-society relations and earth science. It is expected that these materials will be in the hands of interested educators by the start of school 2001.

NASA AESP

The NASA Aerospace Education Services Program (AESP) is a nationwide program designed to enhance educator awareness and understanding of scientific research and technological development. The AESP uses NASA's unique assets to support local, state, and regional curriculum frameworks, as well as existing and emerging national education standards.

GENIP

The Geography Education National Implementation Project (GENIP) is a consortium of geographical associations committed to improving geographic education. It was organized in 1985 as a steering committee by the four national geography organizations, the Association of American Geographers, the American Geographical Society, the National Council for Geographic Education, and the National Geographic Society. GENIP is a clearinghouse and communication mechanism to coordinate geography education initiatives of its representative organizations. For example, GENIP coordinates efforts to implement the National Geography Standards. GENIP's goals are similar to those of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise: to educate students and their teachers to study and better understand Earth.

Contact Information for NASA Field Centers

 

Click on the map to link to the homepages of NASA Field Centers.

NASA Headquarters 300 E Street, SW Washington DC 202.358.000 http://www.hq.nasa.gov	Goddard Space Flight Center 88 Greenbelt Rd. Greenbelt, MD 20771 301.286.2000 http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov	Langley Research Center 100 NASA Rd. Hampton, VA 23681-2199 757.864.3313 http://www.larc.nasa.gov
Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA 94035 650.604.5000 http://www.arc.nasa.gov	Jet Propulsion Laboratory (California Institute of Technology) 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA 91109 818.354.4321 http://www.jpl.nasa.gov	Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL 35812 256.544.8811 http://www.msfc.nasa.gov
Dryden Flight Research Center (Edwards Air Force Base) P.O. Box 273 Edwards, CA 93523 661.258.3311 http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov	Johnson Space Center 2101 NASA Road 1 Houston, TX 77058 281.483.0123 http://www.jsc.nasa.gov	Stennis Space Center Stennis Space Center, MS 39529 601.688.3341 http://www.ssc.nasa.gov
Glenn Research Center (Lewis Field) 21000 Brookpark Rd. Cleveland, OH 44135 216.433.4000 http://www.grc.nasa.gov	Kennedy Space Center Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899 407.867.4444 http://www.ksc.nasa.gov

Team Members

Product Description

Mission Calendar

Sample Resources

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Summer Workshop

created by SEW
August 1999
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