Biology
Scientific paper
Jan 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002iaf..confe.884m&link_type=abstract
IAF abstracts, 34th COSPAR Scientific Assembly, The Second World Space Congress, held 10-19 October, 2002 in Houston, TX, USA.,
Biology
Scientific paper
Four years ago the scientific and engineering staff of our laboratory at the University of California Irvine initiated a student outreach program with the objective of teaching structural biology through involvement with scientific experiments on the International Space Station. That program is now active in 28 of the 50 United States, and has reached approximately 1100 middle and high school teachers, and 50,000 of their students. It will soon have a presence in every state through the support of NASA, The Space Grant Consortium, and a host of other private and public sector institutions. The program is based on a protein and virus crystallization experiment we are conducting at regular intervals of about 2-6 months on the International Space Station. The experiment utilizes a device called the Enhanced GN2 Dewar, and it has now been flown to Mir and the International Space Station more than ten times. The Enhanced GN2 Dewar is an extremely inexpensive, simple, high capacity system for the crystallization of macromolecules, including proteins, nucleic acids, and viruses, in a microgravity environment aboard the ISS (International Space Station). The samples, which are prepared by hand, are frozen by plunging them into liquid nitrogen and maintained in a common freezer until the time of mission launch. The Dewar keeps the samples frozen for periods up to twelve days, including that period during which they are placed on board the Space Shuttle, carried into space from Kennedy Space Center, and transferred to the ISS. We began the classroom experiments in November 1998 and the first workshop was given in January 1999. We have participated in four missions to the ISS. STS-106 on 9/8/2000, STS-98 on 2/7/2001, STS-104 on 7/12/2001, and STS-110 on 4/8/2002. To date we have conducted 28 teacher kit training workshops and 24-flight sample loading workshops. We have had 406 students and 266 teachers load actual flight samples. These participants selected through essay and project competitions were from AL, CA, GA, TN, FL, MI, TX, IN, IL, OH, and WV. We have had over 800 teachers from 35 different states participate in our kit training workshops. Our classroom experiment has been a huge success. Approximately 50,000 kids have done the classroom experiment with participants from AL, AZ, AR, CA, CO, GA, LA, FL, PA, MO, NM, MN, MS, TN, KY, NC, NY, NJ, OH, WV, PR,TX, WI, SC, MI, MA, IL, IN, VA, and MT. ISS will, therefore, serve, not only as a science laboratory for researchers, but as a science classroom for America.
Jenkins Greg
Kenny Nate
McPherson Alexander
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