ALSC joins with NASA in providing space-based activities

Contact: Laura Schulte-Cooper


312-280-2165


lschulte@ala.org

For Immediate Release


June 2002

ALSC joins with NASA in providing space-based activities

The electrifying excitement of space adventure is leaping off the page, a Web page that is, as the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) partners with NASA to provide Club Space Place. Club Space Place offers discovery-based curriculum and online activities focusing on space sciences and technologies that NASA is pioneering through space exploration.

Launched last year, the first hands-on Space Place activity was "Building a Mars Habitat," in which children became space engineers, transforming their local library into a space outpost on the red planet. Other quarterly programs include "Calling All Explorers," which provides an opportunity for children to learn about the amazing similarities between the Lewis and Clark journey and an upcoming NASA mission, Space Technology 5 (ST5); "Where Were You When…?," which invites participants to think back on their own lives and what milestones they may have experienced during the several years that Deep Space 1 was in progress; and Cosmic Poetry, which allows children to express themselves through language and poetry.

"With access to
NASA's Club Space Place, every library can create its own discovery zone, where children can probe and unveil the mysteries of the Universe through hands-on activities," said Dr. Malore Brown, ALSC executive director.

The Club Space Place curriculum not only teaches about space technology and exploration, but also provides cross-disciplinary activities such as poetry (Cosmic Poetry), art (Picture Yourself in the New Millennium) and history (the Lewis & Clark expedition).