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| Students Skype chat with astronaut Michael Fossum. |
NASA guest invitee, Mike Lutomski (the Risk-Manager for the International Space Station), generously gave of his time and energy to provide four days of workshops and presentations for staff and students, at both Academia Cotopaxi and Universidad San Francisco Quito in Ecuador.  |
| "Get a Leg Up!" microgravity lesson. |
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| Authentic learning. |
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| "Train Like an Astronaut" activity. |
I didn't win, but was one of the top 3 finalists for the Innovation in Education award; focusing on aerospace education and A Satellite in the Classroom program.
The final day at the Space Exploration Educators Conference was phenomenal! It began with a hands-on Mission Control workshop that gave many educational ideas for hands-on learning, as well as made connections to the highly-creative thinking that was part of Apollo 13's amazing landing. As an appropriate follow-up, that day's keynote speaker was a personal hero of mine, Gene Krantz; the lead Flight Director of Apollo 13 who, despite unbelievable odds, brought the crew home safe and sound (Ed Harrison played his part in the Apollo 13 movie). I was given the gift of hearing him speak from his personal experience, for an entire hour, just 2 meters in front of me. It was captivating and, to top it off, he enthusiastically answered my personal question: What teacher most inspired you, and why (see video)? Better yet? He thanked me, twice, for giving him a patch from our own Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency (EXA) and kept it in his pocket for safe keeping. I am on cloud nine!
Day 2 began with astronaut Leroy Chiao, as the keynote speaker, describing his four missions; one including 6 months living on the International Space Station (ISS). Afterwards I attended a session which gave details on how best to apply for opportunities to fly an experiment on a future microgravity plane mission, and also tried out a biological experiment already completed by students and educators at zero-g. The highlight of the day, however, was conducting an ISS simulation using Scuba gear and the same underwater training exercises that are given to NASA astronauts at the initiation of their training. Our guides were from NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab, and our team came in 2nd (out of 4) for our timed assembly test.
