Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math | News

NASA Unveils WRATS, WBEE

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 05/03/11

NASA has unveiled two new flight initiatives from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia that will allow students and teachers to interact with administration scientists and engineers.

The Wallops Rocket Academy for Teachers and Students will reinforce STEM concepts by participating virtually or in person in experiences based on NASA's sounding rocket engineering and science data collection.

WRATS will also include interactive online data and teacher resources for integrating the data into classroom lessons on physics and engineering.

Participants in other NASA education projects will also be selected to participate in a Wallops rocketry flight week June 19-24, where they'll learn about the dynamics of launch and safe flight operations and watch a NASA Terrier-Orion sounding rocket liftoff.

The second initiative, the Wallops Balloon Experience for Educators, will also select participants from other NASA education projects.

In July, WBEE teams of high school teachers will visit the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, TX for a weeklong workshop with balloon science activities and the opportunity to build and test their own science payload. The payloads will then be launched to the edge of space by NASA and Louisiana Space Consortium personel.

Further information about the programs is available on NASA's education portal, which can be accessed here.