Via Damaris comes the news that NASA is sponsoring an essay contest for middle and junior high school students:
The Innovative Partnerships Program at NASA Headquarters, in conjunction with the Office of Education, announces the NASA 50th Anniversary Essay Competition for middle and junior high school students during the 2007-2008 academic year. The essay competition consists of two separate topics each with a limit of 500 words. The first topic challenges students to describe how they benefit in their everyday lives from aerospace technologies built by NASA over the last 50 years. The second topic requires students to imagine how their everyday lives will have changed because of NASA aerospace technology years into the future. Complete details for the competition can be found below.
Very cool idea! I think this kind of thing is great. It encourages kids to think about what space has done for them, and that’s a good thing. NASA has done a lot of amazing things these past five decades and kids ages 11-15 may not really appreciate it. The Shuttle is the only rocket they’ve ever seen launch, in many cases (cripes, college kids were born after STS-1 launched!), and they don’t know of all the good NASA has done. I’d like to see schools giving this out as an extra credit assignment, or even as a writing assignment in class.
So for those teachers reading this blog: Notice of Intent is due by December 7, and the essays are due on January 7, 2008.
