New Jersey Education Consortium Hosts Live Chat with Space Station Astronauts

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

Source:

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