Annual Report: Education

A major milestone among our many education programs and events was the opening of the Mars Yard at the Space Foundation Discovery Institute in Colorado Springs. The simulated Martian terrain and robotics laboratory is one of the few such facilities in the world and the only one that routinely offers programs for students and teachers. Work began on the lab in 2010 with the donation of the Honeywell Mars Robotic Experience and initial construction was completed last May. Approximately 3,000 people, including students from the adjacent Jack Swigert Aerospace Academy and from throughout Colorado Springs School District 11, teachers enrolled in our Space Technologies in the Classroom Space Across the Curriculum course, education administrators, community leaders and elected officials visited the Mars Yard in 2011.

The Space Foundation's soon-to-be-published Quantum Leap: 2011 Annual Report chronicles all of our education programs and highlights during 2011. Here are just a few:

Key 2011 Programs and Events:

• Two Festival of Science events in Colorado Springs, one in February and one in August, welcomed middle-school students and their parents and siblings to learn from local science organizations.
• A group of 38 teachers from 37 different schools in 19 states joined the Teacher Liaison program, bringing the number of active participants to more than 250.
• More than 150 pre-K-12 students in 13 states entered drawings, paintings and multimedia pieces in our first Student Art Contest - themed Human Space Travel in the Year 2020. Digital images of entries flew aboard the final flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station (ISS) along with art created by Japanese students through the TERRAHEART program. (Click here to find out about the 2012 Space Foundation Student Art Contest..)
• We hosted, with funding from The Boeing Company, a robot exhibition for teachers and students from 12 Colorado schools that provided teacher training and two free remote control programmable robot kits to help them launch robotics clubs at their schools.
• Last summer, more than 250 teachers attended our Space Across the Curriculum courses in Colorado Springs, Colo., Charles County, Md., and Pueblo, Colo.
• We conducted an Audience with an Astronaut program featuring former NASA astronaut Dr. Leroy Chiao for 300 school children and a Space in the Classroom workshop for 30 middle and high school teachers at the 12th Annual Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies (AMOS) Conference in Maui, Hawai'i, in September.
• We conducted STARS (Science, Technology and Academic Readiness for Space) programs throughout the year at six different schools.
• The Space Foundation and Colorado State University - Pueblo (CSU - Pueblo) signed an agreement that includes Space Across the Curriculum courses for pre-service and in-service teachers, internships for students, collaborative teacher workshops, public outreach programs, cooperative research projects and the establishment of a space studies emphasis in the CSU-Pueblo School of Education's Master of Education and Continuing Education programs.
• We celebrated the fifth anniversary of our relationship with Charles County (Md.) Public Schools.

Quantum Leap: 2011 Annual Report to be Released Later this Month
Watch for information about the upcoming Space Foundation annual report, Quantum Leap: 2011 Annual Report, which will be posted on our website.

To learn more about Space Foundation education programs, go to www.SpaceFoundation.org/education.