NASA astronaut and teacher Barbara Morgan just completed a week in space aboard the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. She is the personification of NASA’s mission to "inspire, engage, and educate the nation’s future workforce." Back here on Earth as kids return to school, a group of Wisconsin educators is working hard to make sure that the Great Lakes Aerospace Science and Education Center (GLASEC) can accomplish the same goal.

In addition to being a hands-on, interactive “space museum” complete with space vehicles, a simulated mission control, and a planetarium that will double as a working teleconference center with the International Space Station, GLASEC will be a Center of Excellence for math and science education.

A group of 15 educators from grades two through nine and curriculum design specialists from around Wisconsin are collaborating to develop curricula for the center. They all have an interest in math, science, and space education. The academic lessons are being designed to go hand-in-hand with a visit by a class to GLASEC in Sheboygan. Teachers will receive three phases of materials: one lesson to complete in class before the class visit, one to be completed at the Center during the visit, and one to reinforce what they experienced after the visit. The lessons will be targeted to different grade levels, and will be consistent with current teaching standards.

According to Adam Binder, and 8th grade teacher at Farnsworth Middle School, "One goal of the center is to provide resources and experiences for [visitors] that are directly connected to the Wisconsin Education Standards. A class visit to the center will provide students with simulations and activities to enhance their learning in a way that would not be possible in the classroom. These units will enhance their current curriculum. We hope to create experiences that take concepts the students are already learning and reinforce them with activities that are not often available to teachers." Mr. Binder and the rest of the volunteer educators will design six to ten lessons for each grade group so that teachers have a variety of options.

It is important to remember how unique GLASEC will be in the northern half of the country. It will provide an experience for tomorrow’s engineers, physicists, technical mechanics, and machine operators that kids would otherwise have to travel to Florida, Texas, or Alabama to experience. This is not just good for the Sheboygan tourism business. It will also spark children to consider how exciting math and science can be, and to explore and work harder in those classes to achieve dreams that were born during a visit to science center. Those young minds will grow up to lead Wisconsin’s growing space-sciences industry, including the design and construction of space vehicles, lab rockets, space robots, and commercial space planes.

Even if they do not grow up to be engineers or microgravity biologists, a population that understands mathematics is critical to America’s long-term manufacturing success and to the enjoyment of personal freedoms. "Knowing science and math can not only lead to a financially rewarding career as an adult, it can also protect you. Too many people are misled today by false claims in advertising, arguments that are based on opinions and not facts, and numbers which are deceiving," according to Jim Schmidt, Associate Vice President of Space-Explorers.com, a Green Bay, WI online space education company that is collaborating with the panel of educators on curriculum design. He continues, "Having math skills allows you to investigate claims and arguments to determine for yourself if you believe them. You don't have to wear a lab coat to investigate the claims made by an advertiser or a politician. Having an appreciation for mathematics helps us understand interest rates, how to read charts and graphs, and determine how to manage family debt. There are too many people today being taken advantage of because they are intimidated by numbers and science. By teaching young people these important skills we are equipping them to succeed at time where numbers and data are increasingly available and often skewed."

GLASEC will deliver a hands-on interactive experience that complements academic lessons, and give those complete lessons to visiting educators to help them drive excitement into their math and science lessons. That is the factual explanation of what GLASEC will "do" for visitors from all over. But the visionary explanation, and what motivates these educators to collaborate as volunteers goes something like this: "People tend to be familiar with the past accomplishments of NASA, but, although they are significant, not many people know what the future holds in terms of space exploration. This center will give people a glimpse into that future," says Mr. Binder. And Schmidt continues, "It’s like looking out over the ocean and wondering what it is like on the other side. We need to show our young people just how big our universe is. There are endless places to explore, and there are resources available throughout our solar system. GLASEC can be the window that students look out of and realize, for the first time, that there is so much out there, and that they can be the ones to explore it. I have seen the excitement students have just from pictures and videos of space. I know that GLASEC will inspire them to experience it for themselves."