iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

How does your Living Space compare to the International Space Station?

As we look forward to expanding space exploration into long-term, long-distance space travel, we need to understand how environmental factors impact human health and well-being. Let’s Talk Science has developed an exciting new Action Project in partnership with the Canadian Space Agency and the CanCode program to give teachers and students an opportunity to monitor their “living space” and integrate science and coding in a unique and engaging way in their classroom. During the upcoming mission of Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques, David will be experiencing first-hand the environmental conditions of the International Space Station (ISS) and reporting them back to earth for participating classrooms to compare their results to!

Participating students and educators will:

     * Study key environmental conditions that are carefully monitored and adjusted on the ISS;

     *Investigate environmental conditions, such as temperature, light, humidity, and air quality, in their classroom, and how these relate to health and well-being;

     * Collect and analyse data using programmed sensors and compare it with information from other participating classrooms as well as other locations – even the ISS during David Saint-Jacques' mission;

     * Develop analytical thinking and digital and coding skills!

2017-03-21 - In this video about the Tomatosphere™ educational project, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesquet explains the importance of growing fresh fruits and vegetables in space to nourish future travelers embarking on long-duration missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

Tomatosphere™ is a blind study in which Canadian and American students in 20, 000 classrooms grow tomato plants stemming from seeds that either travelled to space or stayed on Earth—but the seeds’ history remain a mystery until the end.
Typically, the space-faring tomato seeds spend four weeks aboard the International Space Station.

Tomatosphere™ engages students in real scientific processes that teach and reinforce inquiry skills, while they explore concepts related to plants, space, careers, nutrition and agriculture.

The discovery of gravitational waves that was announced a few weeks ago substantiated Albert Einstein’s oracular ideas about black holes.The importance of such a discovery in scientists' eyes is that it will help shed light on many enigmatic issues about the genesis of the universe. Your students might have heard about this scientific breakthrough and though they might probably not fully understand the full concept of gravitational waves and Einstein’s general relativity but their desire to learn more about space and its workings might be revived. Students can actually learn a great deal about space using iPad apps. There is a wide variety of excellent apps created specifically to help students and even young learners explore the workings of space and understand some of its topics. Below is a collection of some examples of NASA apps  students can use to learn more about space: