TORONTO, September 26, 2001 -- York University’s YES I Can! Science Project team, in the Faculty of Pure and Applied Science, is collaborating with NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to launch the International Space Station’s (ISS) first virtual classroom presentation for Canadian high school students in grades nine and 10. The presentation -- on space robotics -- will be broadcast on Thursday, September 27, at 1:10 p.m. EST.
During the 20-minute in-orbit portion of the presentation -- which will be accessible to students around the world via Webcast and NASA TV -- NASA astronaut Frank Culbertson, the commander of ISS Expedition Three, will demonstrate to students how inertia and weightlessness affect payloads in space and how they influence the design of robotic payload movers such as the Canadarm2.
Students will also be introduced to several robotics concepts in an interactive presentation hosted by CSA Executive Vice-President Dr. Marc Garneau and CSA Robotics Instructor Lindsay Evans at the Newfoundland Science Centre. Their presentation will focus on the structural and functional differences between Canadarm and Canadarm2.
"With the delivery of these materials to students and teachers across Canada and around the world, the YES I Can! Project is playing a real part in Canadian history," said Susan Stiff, Yes I Can! Project Manager. "As a multinational collaboration, the ISS could have been broadcasting educational resources created by educators from almost anywhere in the world. The fact that they chose Canadian designed resources is a statement of the quality and professionalism that goes on every day in classrooms across this country".
The YES I Can! Science Project team, together with the CSA, developed the comprehensive science unit "Moving Payloads in Space: Understanding Motion Graphs" to prepare teachers for the event: the two lessons, the script that Culbertson will follow, the student activity to accompany the lessons and a robotics competition open to teams of secondary students from across the country.
Established at York in 1998, with the approval of Industry Canada, the YES I Can! Science Project provides teachers with the classroom resources and background material necessary to teach science so that students will develop conceptual insight into the fundamental principles which form the basis of modern science and technology.
The Webcast will be available at http://www.schoolnet.ca/space and will be archived so that students and teachers may access it after the real-time event. The complete teacher resource module is available on the Yes I Can! Web site under real-time science events.
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For further information visit the YES I Can! Web site at http://yesican.yorku.ca, or contact:
Susan Stiff
Project Manager, YES I Can!
York University
705-686-7616
sstiff@yorku.ca
Ken Turriff
Media Relations
York University
416-736-2100, ext. 22086
kturriff@yorku.ca
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