New Jersey Education Consortium Hosts Live Chat with Space Station Astronauts

Ann Marie Trotta
Headquarters, Washington

Rachel Kraft

Johnson Space Center, Houston

WASHINGTON -- Students and educators from Sussex County, N.J., will gather at Newton High School on Wednesday, Feb. 22, to further their space studies by speaking live with Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank and Flight Engineer Don Pettit aboard the International Space Station. The Earth-to-space communication will take place at 10 a.m. EST and be broadcast live on NASA Television.

The students participating in the event range from kindergarten through 12th grade. They represent the Newton, Andover Regional and Green Township school districts in Sussex County, all of which are part of the Tri-District Curriculum Consortium. U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) is expected to join the group for this special event.

Reporters wanting to attend the event must contact Mary Decker at mdecker@newtonnj.org or 973-383-7392, ext. 230, by noon Tuesday, Feb. 21. Newton High School is located at 44 Reyerson Ave. in Newton.

The students participated in a variety of space-focused science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) educational initiatives in preparation for the space station downlink. They also designed a special patch to commemorate their interaction with the orbiting astronauts.

This in-flight education downlink is one in a series with educational organizations in the United States and abroad to improve STEM teaching and learning. It is an integral component of NASA's Teaching from Space Program, which promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique environment of space and NASA's human spaceflight program.

For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv.

For information about NASA's education programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov/education.

For information about the International Space Station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station.

To follow Twitter updates from Burbank and Pettit, visit http://twitter.com/AstroCoastie and http://twitter.com/Astro_Pettit.

- end -