Achieving Orbit

In this Engineering Design Challenge activity, participants use balloons to investigate how a two-stage rocket, like that used in the IBEX mission, can propel a satellite to a specific orbit. Participants will construct a two-stage balloon that will be required to reach a particular location on the balloon track, simulating the proper orbit to be reached by the IBEX satellite. This activity is adapted from the NASA Rockets Educators Guide (EG-2003-01-108-HQ) and the NASA Glenn Research Center’s online Learning Technologies Project for facilitation with an informal museum audience. Each short activity/product helps to build awareness and engagement in the science and engineering aspects of the mission that is reinforced as visitors choose to participate in more activities, including viewing the planetarium show and mission Web site. Educational levels: Informal education, General public

Taut sutured handlebodies as twisted homology products

Friedl and Kim show any taut sutured manifold can be realized as a twisted homology product, but their proof gives no practical description of how complicated the realizing representation needs to be. We give a number of results illustrating the relationship between the topology of a taut sutured handlebody and the complexity of a representation realizing it as a homology product

BLS Spotlight on Statistics: Expenditures on Admissions to the Arts, Movies, Sporting Events, and other Entertainment

In 2015, American consumers spent an average of $652 on admissions to the arts, movies, sporting events, and other entertainment and recreational activities. In 2012, 70 percent of U.S. adults attended a live performing arts or sporting event or went to the movies. This Spotlight on Statistics uses data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey and the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts to profile consumer spending and attendance at arts, sports, and entertainment events.For additional context, the Spotlight also examines selected personal consumption expenditure estimates from the Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account

Giorgione [exhibition review]

Exhibition review of In the Age of Giorgione (London, Royal Academy of Art

Exploring the Edge of Our Solar System: IBEX Mission (Poster)

This poster outlines the major mission highlights of the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission, a Small Explorer Earth-orbiting spacecraft that is designed to map the distant boundary between the solar wind from our Sun and the interstellar medium. This poster supports a full-length planetarium show about the IBEX mission and the boundary of the Solar System. Each short activity/product helps to build awareness and engagement in the science and engineering aspects of the mission that are reinforced as visitors choose to participate in more activities, including viewing the show and mission website.

Issues in designing learning by teaching systems

Abstract: Learning by teaching systems are a relatively recent approach to designing Intelligent Learning Environments that place learners in the role of tutors. These systems are based on the practice of peer tutoring where students take on defined roles of tutor and tutee. An architecture for learning by teaching systems is described that does not require the domain model of an Intelligent Tutoring System. However a mutual communication language is needed and is defined by a conceptual syntax that delimits the domain content of the dialogue. An example learning by teaching system is described for the domain of qualitative economics. The construction and testing of this system inform a discussion of the major design issues involved: the nature of the learnt model, the form of the conceptual syntax, the control of the interaction and the possible introduction of domain knowledge. 1