Students take part in NASA sponsored Sallyride EarthKAM programme
SPACE brought the enthralling experience about the procedure of requesting images of the Earth from the International Space Station within the reach of its associated students through Sally Ride EarthKAM (Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students) September mission. This was a NASA mission administered by Sally Ride Science. Students also wrote messages for astronauts on-board the ISS, which will be compiled by SPACE and sent to the mission team.
SPACE conducted this workshop in two days in two different schools in Chennai.
On the first day 11th April 2019 the workshop was conducted at National Public School with a total of 27 students. The program was inaugurated by Ms. Maya Sivaramakrishnan, the principal of the School.
On 12th April the workshop was conducted at Vels Vidyashram Senior Secondary School, Pallavaram for 60 students and the program was inaugurated by Mr. Vijayakumar Director, Vels Group of Schools, followed by Ms. Vasanthi Viswanathan, Principal of the School.
SPACE has been conducting this NASA educational outreach programme in India for the past 5 years to promote student engagement in science, technology and astronomy.
During this April 2019 Mission SPACE Chennai has trained nearly 90 students in requesting photographs of the Earth from the ISS. During this programme, participants logged in to the website and requested images from the camera mounted on the ISS. Participants get a chance to capture select images of the Earth’s surface as seen from space. These images can be used in class projects in Earth science, space science, Geography, Social Studies and more.
Our Indian American astronaut Sunita Williams serviced this camera on her last ISS mission – Expedition 33.
Sally Ride EarthKAM
The project was initiated by Dr Sally Ride Sally Ride EarthKAM, previously known as ISS EarthKAM, was initiated by Dr. Sally Ride (America’s first woman in space) in 1995 and called KidSat. In 1998, the programme was deemed successful and renamed ISS EarthKAM. In India this programme was started by SPACE in India in 2010-2011 with the aim to encourage using the images (clicked by ISS) as educational resources, to enhance learning and address standards in science, Geography, Mathematics, technology, and more. Sally Ride EarthKAM camera has permanent payload on board the ISS and supports approximately four missions annually.