News

Living Planet Symposium engages Scottish students

Details: Published on Friday, 27 September 2013

The start of September saw Edinburgh host the Living Planet Symposium, a gathering of experts on Earth observation science. As part of creating an impact from the symposium on awareness of the science involved, several key partners put together activities for a "Schools Lab" running concurrently with the symposium. National Space Academy Director Anu Ojha was there demonstrating how Earth observation science can be used to tackle classroom topics.

Girls in Physics event success

Details: Published on Thursday, 12 September 2013

The National Space Academy's Kierann Shah and Sophie Allan attended an event organised by Lead Educator Ruth Rowsell designed to get year 11 girls thinking about studying physics at A Level and beyond. The event was supported by The Ogden Trust and The Institute of Physics and invited five schools to bring a team of four capable female science pupils to design and test a thermal protection system, or 'heat shield', for a vehicle re-entering Earth's atmosphere.

Project Director and Lead Educator at ESA's Summer Teacher Workshop

Details: Published on Tuesday, 03 September 2013

This August saw the 4th annual ESA Summer Workshop for Teacher's take place at ESTEC in the Netherlands, and once again the National Space Academy was there to challenge teachers to bring inspirational space science contexts into their classrooms.

Lead Educator's View: Descent into Boulby Mine

Details: Published on Wednesday, 07 August 2013

Boulby Underground Laboratory, an STFC facility, is featured today in a BBC article on how the research conducted there could provide insight into whether life could survive in the extreme environments "beyond the Earth". Earlier this year Lead Educator Ian Tippey joined a group of teachers for a visit to the mine where this and other research takes place. Here is Ian's account of his visit to Boulby Mine.

Conferences, Megaclasses, Space Camp and more - a busy summer term for the National Space Academy

Details: Published on Friday, 02 August 2013

The summer term was a whirlwind of activity for the core team of the National Space Academy, with both Anu Ojha and Sophie Allan involved in teaching and presenting in the UK and Europe. Lead Educators continued to deliver inspiring masterclasses in their regions as well as at the National Space Centre. In addition to this the Academy presented and exhibited at the British Science Association's Science Communication Conference in London and the UK Space Conference in Glasgow, building stronger links with educators and industry.

Government gives go ahead for Space Studio School

Details: Published on Wednesday, 10 April 2013

The National Space Academy and the National Space Centre are both set to be key partners with the Space Studio Banbury, one of 13 new Studio Schools to be announced today.

Higher Apprenticeship for Space Engineering promoted by Science Minister

Details: Published on Wednesday, 03 April 2013

The National Space Academy's colleagues at Loughborough College have produced a number of promotional videos for the new Higher Apprenticeship in Space Engineering. As well as focussing on current students on the post-16 Space Engineering course, the College have also produced a video in which the Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, discusses the launch of the Higher Apprenticeship and its goals.

We Are Aliens Teacher Resources Available Online

Details: Published on Monday, 25 March 2013

We Are Aliens, the latest planetarium show produced by the National Space Centre's in house designers and animators at NSC Creative, was launched towards the end of 2012. Alongside the development of the show, NSC Creative worked with National Space Academy Lead Educators to develop classroom resources, including video clips of experiments, based around the science of We Are Aliens. These resources for physics, chemistry and biology are all available online.

Minister Helps Launch Higher Apprenticeship in Space Engineering

Details: Published on Monday, 18 March 2013

Last Friday saw the official launch of the Higher Apprenticeship in Space Engineering, a framework developed by the National Space Academy in collaboration with Loughborough College and Leicester University. Science Minister David Willetts joined the first cohort of the Space Engineering post-16 course at RAL Space to talk to existing STFC apprentices and young people interested in joining the UK Space Sector through the apprenticeship pathway.

ESA video shows Project Director's session at Summer Teacher Conference

Details: Published on Tuesday, 05 March 2013

The European Space Agency (ESA)'s dedicated Education channel on Youtube has released a film highlighting one of the National Space Academy teacher masterclass held at ESA's space engineering technical centre (ESTEC – Holland) as part of ESA's 2012 Summer Teacher Conference.