MENTORS NEEDED FOR THE 2009 BP PHYSICS CHALLENGE AT SPACE CENTER HOUSTON (SCH)

Through the Education Outreach Office, SCH has requested JSC’s assistance by providing volunteers to serve as mentors for students participating in the fourth annual BP Physics Challenge. High School students from the Houston Independent School District (HISD) will be participating. The goal is to provide HISD physics and upper-level math students with a meaningful, fun day of seeing physics in action. This is an outstanding way for our JSC team members to directly contribute to the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Your assistance with this program will be greatly appreciated and could very well translate to interesting a student in a career here at JSC.

Mentor training sessions will take place at SCH on November 6th and 7th, 2008. Mentors need to attend one of these half-day sessions. At the training session, SCH will cover the concepts and logistics of what will happen during the Student Days event in January, as well as what the mentor’s role will be during the event. Mentors need to have knowledge about principals of rocketry and Newtonian physics.

In addition to the mentor training, volunteers are also expected to visit a school and participate in mentoring students on Physics Day, which is January 14th, 15th, and 16th, 2009 (volunteers may choose to participate on any of the three January dates- full or half day). Students and teachers will come to SCH to perform unique and exciting physics experiments throughout the day while making real-world connections. This is a unique opportunity to interest students in science careers that will benefit the space program. I hope you’ll take the challenge and sign up to volunteer today.