St. Joan of Arc Teachers Selected to Participate in NASA’s Teaching From Space MicroGravity Experience

The MicroGravity eXperience or Micro GX is a unique learning experience made possible by the NASA Teaching From Space Office.

St. Joan of Arc Catholic School Principal, Sr. Carolyn Sieg, O.S.B., recently shared the exciting news with the school community that St. Joan of Arc Catholic School was selected to participate in this prestigious program based on the experiment application “Gravity’s Affect on Magnets.”

The St. Joan of Arc Catholic School Team will be comprised of St. Joan of Arc teachers that includes Tanya Anderson, Gina Dirienzo, Carolyn Friedman and Theresa Weber. They will join six other national educator teams that will be engaged in a suite of Micro GX activities that include online professional development on classroom resources for microgravity, collaboration with a NASA mentor and a reduced gravity flight.

The St. Joan of Arc School team of educators began their online microgravity course on Feb. 11, with a series of web seminars with NASA personnel that initiated experiment development.

The highlight of the activity of the online course is to travel to Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and participate in the Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program during the week of July 12-20. During the flight, educators will fly and perform their custom experiments on a Boeing 727 aircraft that is capable of simulating a reduced gravity environment.

Teachers will also participate in a tour of the NASA Johnson Space Center to experience and witness NASA facilities where microgravity is simulated on earth.

Although students under the age of 18 are not permitted to be on the reduced gravity flight, they will partner with their teachers and research all aspects of the St. Joan of Arc Catholic School’s “Gravity’s Effects on Magnets” experiment. Students will be able to see video footage of their teachers carrying out their experiment on the Reduced Gravity Flight when the flight is over.

Anderson, Dirienzo, Friedman and Weber will also integrate social media to keep their students, as well as the St. Joan of Arc School community, engaged in their progress.