NASA STEM Digital Badges for Educators and Their Students: A Pilot Program Bringing STEM into Middle Schools using NASA Langley Research Center’s Centennial Celebration

A pilot program was developed for middle school (grades 6-8) educators and students to apply NASA real-world problems to classroom concepts as part of NASA Langley Research Center’s (LaRC) Centennial Celebration through the use of digital badges. Three sets of digital badges were developed on three of NASA’s main missions: Earth Science, Aeronautics, and Journey to Mars. Each digital badge offers a total of 5 hours of professional development for educators and 2 hours of activities for students. These digital badges have introduced educators to NASA Langley Research Center’s missions and 100thanniversary. Online discussion sessions, a requirement for these badges, has attracted educators new to the digital badge concepts. The LaRC Centennial badges provide a forum through which educators can learn about this new format of professional development. Educators report that these badges are worth their time and effort as part of their professional development. LaRC looks forward to building new badges in the future to expand beyond middle school across the K-12 continuum.</jats:p

NASA GLOBE CLOUD GAZE: Cloud Types and Sky Condition tags within Sky Photographs Taken by Citizen Scientists and Matched to Multiple Satellite Data

NASA GLOBE CLOUD GAZE allows citizen scientists to look at cloud photographs submitted to GLOBE by students, teachers and the general public through the program’s GLOBE Observer app and identify elements such as the presence or absence of clouds, dust storms, smoke plumes and haze layers. In addition, participants can identify cloud types and point out any other noteworthy observations — all by simply visiting the CLOUD GAZE project on the Zooniverse online platform. This presentation was presented at the 2022 NASA ESDSWG Meeting (April 19-21, 2022).</p