No. 60 - Winter 2003

© 2003, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 390 Ashton Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94112.

New Spanish Language Astronomy Resources

Editors Note: Readers may have noticed that the ASP depends on volunteers to translate this newsletter into a variety of languages. This issue is about a focused effort by two astronomy education providers, the ASP and NASA, to make their most popular resources available in both English and Spanish.

Part 1: NASA Resouces in Spanish
Part 2: ASP Resources in Spanish

NASA Resources in Spanish

by Teresa J. Kennedy, Ph.D., NASA OSS Idaho Broker Facilitator, Space Science Network Northwest (S2N2)

Many resources translated in the Spanish language can be found online, at NASA Space Centers and at NASA Educator Resource Centers scattered across the United States. These resources, many of which have been aligned with national standards, appropriate state frameworks and inquiry guidelines, are available online or at NASA Education Resource Centers found nationally.

Ciencia@nasa, the Spanish-language companion to NASA's award-winning science@NASA site, features stories from all fields of science, aeronautics and aerospace (http://ciencia.nasa.gov). This site contains information regarding space sciences, astronomy, living in space, earth science, as well as physical and biological sciences. It also contains a site called Thursdays Classroom http://www.thursdaysclassroom.com. Educators can subscribe to a mailing list and receive regular lessons, also posted online in Spanish at http://ciencia.nasa.gov/.

Many NASA Centers have provided Spanish-language translations of their educational products. Below is a listing of available resources by Center.

AMES Research Center (Moffett Field, California)

• Amesnews, http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/index_span.html disseminates news releases, document and image archives, fact sheets, point-of-contact information and related items to provide access to news releases to Spanish-speaking reporters, the public and educators.
• NASA Ames Engineering and Science: A curriculum for K-12 in Spanish http://ldaps.arc.nasa.gov/Spanish
• The Genesis Mission website is organized into sets about the Genesis mission, the Genesis spacecraft, and about different disciplines in science. http://www.genesismission.org/educate/kitchen/resource/factsheets/index.html
• Lego Design and Programming System — Engineering and Science: A curriculum for K-12 http://ldaps.arc.nasa.gov/Spanish/
• The Center of Excellence Science Information and Technology http://www.arc.nasa.gov/spanish/s_computing.html
• Bilingual Women of NASA The Women of NASA project has assembled an outstanding website containing historical information, women of NASA profiles, chat opportunities and ESL materials. http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/women/espanol/intro.html
• Robin Whirlybird is an online, interactive book about one girl's visit with her mother to the rotorcraft research center where her mother works written in English, Spanish and Chinese. http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/test/rotorcraft

Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, Maryland)

• The Sun Earth Day Kit http://sunearthday.nasa.gov contains materials that provide a basic understanding of the dynamics of the Sun, of the aurora, and of the turbulent space around Earth.
• Mission to Geospace http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp/outreach/conexion.html This site contains links to several individual sites dealing with Geospace.
• Star Gazers Solar Terrestrial Probes/Living With a Star Education & Public Outreach http://stargazers.gsfc.nasa.gov/ (choose Spanish version and enter site).
• Solar storms poster can be found at http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp/outreach/cmeposter/spindex.html
• Star child http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/translations.html
• Star Gazers from Goddard http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Meclipt.htm http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Mintro.htm
• The Exploration of the Earth's Magnetosphere found at
  http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/MIntro.html contains an overview of space research on the Earth's environment in space. The description, provided in both English and Spanish, is non-mathematical but quite detailed.
• From Stargazers to Starships
  http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Mintro.htm
• The Great Magnet The Earth
  http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthmag/Mdmagint.htm
• The El Niño Primer contains a Power Point in Spanish available in audio format that explains the ENSO event. http://nsipp.gsfc.nasa.gov/enso/primer/spanishwelcome.html
• Constellation of SAC-C, EO1, Terra & Landsat 7 http://orbis.conae.gov.ar/sac-c

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, California)

• The New Millennium Program http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/index_flash.html
• Deep Space http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/espanol.html
• NASA Kids Space Place http://spaceplace.jpl.nasa.gov/espanol which contain information and materials from all NASA missions and enterprises.
• Toll-free Question Phone line (866) 575-6178 Contains prerecorded answers to many frequently asked questions about space or space exploration, adding a new question each month.The recorded message is available in both English and Spanishat.
• Greetings to the Universe can be accessed in 55 Different Languages http://vraptor.jpl.nasa.gov/voyager/lang.html.
• Cassini Mission to Saturn Fact Sheet http://eis.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini_epo/gallery/products/pdfs/cassini_msn_espanol.pdf
• Search for Origins Project created the Genesis Facts Sheets in Spanish found at http://www.genesismission.org/educate/kitchen/resource/factsheets/index.html
• Infrared Processing and Analysis Center http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/Outreach/Edu. The website provides images and information about infrared astronomy projects that have been and currently are being supported by IPAC. The site is translated into Spanish at http://ipac.jpl.nasa.gov/SIRTFspanish/index.html.

Johnson Space Center (Houston, Texas) has some collaborative projects in Texas.

• Topex Poseidon Coloring and Activity Book on-line in Spanish by the Texas Space Grant Consortium http://www.tsgc.utexas.edu/topex/spanish/coloring
• StarDate Universo Guide in Spanish was created by the McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas at Austin. http://www.radiouniverso.org

Kennedy Space Center (Cocoa Beach, Florida)

• NASA Kennedy Space Center News en Español: Links to biographies of Spanish Astronauts, bilingual women at NASA, employment at NASA, interplanetary exploration, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and much more! This site contains many links to translated information in Spanish.
  http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/spanish/spanish.htm

Langley Research Center (Hampton, Virginia)

• Functions and Statistics: Dressed for Space is a NASA Connect Lesson Guide that corresponds to the 2002-2003 NASA Connect Series. http://connect.larc.nasa.gov/lessonguides.html
• The Solar Website is available in pages in Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese or German, you can easily do so by installing the "Babel Fish" on your browser.
  http://www-sage3.larc.nasa.gov/solar/siteinfo.html

Marshall Space Flight Center (Huntsville, Alabama)

• NASA Kids, a product of Science @ NASA is located at http://kids.msfc.nasa.gov/ and contains selected items translated in Spanish on a link Nueva Ciencia La NASA Kids Historias http://kids.msfc.nasa.gov/sp/News/ including stories about Mossy Spirals, Earthgazing, In Search of Moon Trees, A Close Look at Launch, Skeletons in NASA's Closet!, The First Day of Autumn, The Real Lord of the Rings — Saturn, Mixed up in Space and more.
• A Little Rock on Mars is a story dedicated to the Mars Pathfinder Team is translated into Spanish, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Czech, Catalan, French, and Italian. http://kids.msfc.nasa.gov/Sites/ExternSite.asp?url=http%3A%2F%2Feis%2Ejpl%2Enasa%2Egov%2F%7Eskientz%2Flittle%5Frock%2F

Stennis Space Center (South Mississippi)

• Stennis es, http://www.ssc.nasa.gov/about/stennis/stennis-es.html is an online introduction to NASA's Stennis Space Center, which conducts propulsion testing and remote-sensing research on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

NASA Core manages the distribution of many educational materials that can be purchased http://core.nasa.gov/index.html and a complete catalog can be viewed at http://catalog.core.nasa.gov/core.nsf/f402529750e8ecca8625670b007b1dce/5e69d814409bbec786256bea006da480?OpenDocument Titles translated in Spanish include:

• Winning: Aerospace — The Next Decade is a 20 minute video targeted at students introduces students in grades 7-12 to the unique career opportunities in America's aerospace industry.
• Nuestra Propia Estrella el Sol - This is the Spanish version of the easy-to-read book Our Very Own Star: the Sun that can also be used in a basic bilingual or Spanish classroom. Item number: 300.1-14P, 2002. Cost: $ 3.00
• Our Solar System is a 29 minute video that teaches the names, orbital positions, and characteristics of each planet using the phrase "my very educated mother just served us nine pizza piesс, for grades K-4. Each tape contains four versions of the program: English, Spanish, sign language, and open captioned for the Hearing Impaired
• Star Gaze: Hubble's View of the Universe. Star Gaze is a DVD that contains over an hour of images of the universe from the Hubble Space Telescope in 2000, plus Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound music from 2002 and provides in depth facts and details about the telescope and what it has found so far.
• NASA Destination Tomorrow™ 2000-2001 5-PART SERIES is a 30-minute educational program in Spanish, designed for educators, parents, and lifelong learners by NASA's Center for Distance Learning.

NASA also has many International Programs that provide educational materials in many languages:

• The CERES S'COOL Project http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/SCOOL/
  CERES - Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System - is a high priority scientific satellite instrument which is now orbiting the Earth as part of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise (formerly known as Mission to Planet Earth). Scientists are using it to study the ways in which clouds may affect the Earth's climate.
• The International GLOBE Program http://www.globe.gov/
  The GLOBE Program is a hands-on environmental science and education program designed for use in Kindergarten through Grade 12. It is a world-wide network of students, teachers and scientists from over 15,000 schools in 101 different countries and focuses on activities that complement studies in science, mathematics, technology, social studies, and literacy in many languages.

Summary

Visit NASA's ERCN website at http://spacelink.nasa.gov/ercn to find a complete listing of all Educator Resource Centers by state as well as those located on or near NASA Field Centers or at planetariums, museums, colleges, universities, and other non-profit organizations around the United States where you can obtain free NASA educational materials for your classroom as well as information regarding educational training workshops. As additional NASA sites go online, they'll be added to a comprehensive list of Spanish-language Websites being managed on the agency's primary homepage at: http://www.nasa.gov/hqpao/espanol.html

Also visit the Idaho NASA Educators Resource Center website at http://www.uidaho.edu/ed/imtc/nasa_rerc for a listing of NASA materials, including materials that have been translated into many languages. Many of the lessons currently being translated are from NASA Explores http://www.nasaexplores.com where free weekly K-12 educational articles and lesson plans on current NASA projects can be easily accessed through an internal search engine. Printable and downloadable, these supplemental curriculum resources meet national educational standards in science (NSTA), mathematics (NCTM), technology (ISTE, ITEA), and geography (NGS).

Author's Footnote:

Dr. Teresa Kennedy, NASA OSS Idaho Broker Facilitator for S2N2 (Space Science Network Northwest) has been assembling a collection of NASA materials translated into Spanish from the various NASA centers since 1996 and is currently translating selected NASA educational materials into the Spanish language with her translation team, representing Spain, México, Ecuador, Colombia and Perњ. Many of the lessons currently being translated and enhanced are from NASA Explores http://www.nasaexplores.com that provides free weekly K-12 educational articles and lesson plans on current NASA projects that can be easily accessed through an internal search engine. Printable and downloadable, these supplemental curriculum resources meet national educational standards in science (NSTA), mathematics (NCTM), technology (ISTE, ITEA), and geography (NGS). For links to selected translated materials visit the Idaho website at http://www.uidaho.edu/ed/nasa_rerc Contact Dr. Kennedy at tkennedy@uidaho.edu

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