SESDA II and JWST Challenge Students in the Real and Virtual Worlds
February 1, 2011
SESDA II staff supporting the James Webb Space Telescope are helping to promote and facilitate the RealWorld-InWorld NASA Engineering Design Challenge, a unique education initiative that targets students in grades 9-12 and encourages them to explore and build skills essential for successful careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math through two phases of project-based learning and team competition.
The Challenge invites high school students to work cooperatively as engineers and scientists to solve real-world problems related to the James Webb Space Telescope. In Phase 1 students (working in teams of three-to-five) explore and design solutions to two real-world problems related to the James Webb Space Telescope. Teams who complete Phase 1 are then paired with participating college engineering students to begin Phase 2, the InWorld phase of the challenge. Working in a virtual world setting, each newly formed InWorld team uses 21st-century tools to refine designs and create 3-D models of the Webb telescope.
A SESDA II staff member presented a poster promoting the project at the recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, WA. More information on this exciting project can be found at http://jwst.nasa.gov/realworld.html.
