PUBLIC? YES, THEY CAN BE ENGAGED IN PLANETARY SCIENCE

A NASA scientist said “science isn’t done until it’s shared with the public.” Scientists and education specialists took that charge and shared the excitement and the science of planetary exploration with students, K-12 educators, informal educators, and the public. Many NASA education programs focus on informal and public audiences.

NASA Space Science Day (NSSD) college students and Girl Scout volunteers, trained in planetary science and activities, take simple thematic planetary activities to after school settings, events or camps. While students have fun, this simple engagement can increase awareness of planetary topics and careers (External Evaluation NSSD 2010).

Another level of engaging students and the public is through planetary samples and analogues. Rocks from space provide a connection to planetary and Earth science through activities, observations, and experiments. Through trained educators, NASA loans samples of lunar rocks or meteorites to classrooms, libraries, etc. University educators borrow lunar and meteorite petrologic thin sections for courses. NASA provides soil simulants, lunar and martian, so students and the public can experience the feel and look of the surface of another planetary body and make comparisons with Earth.

At the investigative research level, students and out-of-school time programs use the vast on-line data sets. The Expedition Earth and Beyond Program enables students to research Earth via images from Space Station and compare Earth to planetary bodies using images of Mars, Moon, Mercury. This is one of several programs where students conduct authentic research utilizing real NASA data.

Participatory science is a different style of involvement where the public adds to data accumulation and interpretation. Moon Zoo and Stardust at Home are examples of public engagement in real planetary science. To identify interplanetary dust particles trapped in aerogel, Stardust at Home trains the public to identify dust particles in images. This large number of eyes focused on these images has increased data accumulation. Moon Zoo public participants classify images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. These programs show that the public can have a direct involvement with planetary science.

The future will bring many more public participation interactive research projects.