European Association for Astronomy Education

Source: ESA and YouTube

On October 10th, ESA, JAXA of Japan and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) joined the launch of 'YouTube Space Lab', an exciting campaign initiated by YouTube, NASA, Space Adventures and Lenovo that challenges students around the world to design a science experiment for the International Space Station.

The winning experiments will be conducted in space on the International Space Station (ISS), making it the Universe's largest science lesson, streamed live for the world to see via YouTube.

Space Lab is part of a larger YouTube effort, aimed at providing educators access to the wealth of educational content available on YouTube. Individually or in groups of up to three, students aged 14–18 years may submit a YouTube video describing their experiment to www.youtube.com/spacelab.

A panel of prestigious scientists, astronauts and teachers, including the renowned Professor Stephen Hawking, astronauts Frank De Winne, Samantha Cristoforetti and Timothy Peake of ESA, NASA’s Leland Melvin, Akihiko Hoshide of JAXA, Chris Hadfield of CSA and Cirque du Soleil’s founder Guy Laliberté, will judge the entries with input from the YouTube community. Six regional finalists will gather in the USA in March 2012 to experience a zero-gravity flight and receive other prizes. (Go to SpaceLab Contest webpage)

Source: NASA News Release

NASA has released an interactive, educational video game called NetworKing that depicts how the Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) network operates. The release of the video game coincides with the close of World Space Week, Oct. 4-10.

Developed by the Information Technology Office at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., NetworKing gives players an insider's perspective into how astronauts, mission controllers and scientists communicate during space missions. (see game)