Education ForeCAST Tipsheet

BioBLAST: Studying Virtual Ecosystems NASA's Classroom of the Future has brought together education and biology experts and high school teachers from across the United States to develop a narrow and deep "slice" of biology for high school communities. The six-week curriculum called BioBLAST (Better Learning through Adventure, Simulation, and Technology) will engage students in explorations of the interrelatedness of all living things. Over the next twenty years, NASA plans to launch manned spacecraft that will venture to Mars and beyond. To supply astronauts with sufficient food, oxygen and water for these prolonged missions, NASA will build self-sustaining, plant-based, life-support systems. Crews will depend on the reliable production of food, water, and oxygen from engineered plant-growth chambers and on the total recycling of human and plant waste products. To accomplish this feat--to build Earth-like ecosystems in a tiny, closed space--will require a depth of understanding of the relationship between humans and plants never before realized. The Classroom Experience BioBLAST students begin with a virtual "lift-off" to the Moon. En route, they receive a video briefing from NASA Mission Control introducing them to the special mission that awaits them. They will help NASA design a CELSS (Controlled Ecological Life Support System) for prolonged space exploration. They will learn more about the assignment when they land on the lunar surface and tour the research station there. For the duration of the BioBLAST curriculum, students will communicate on-line with BioBLAST students across the United States and with scientists at NASA space centers. Students will participate in problem-solving sessions, keep science journals, and defend proposals for original experiments that will be peer-reviewed and posted to the BioBLAST Web serve. BioBLAST lesson activities include: playing the Cycles Game, a computerized, abstract training program for developing problem-solving skills using an electronic, virtual environment to access computer-based research tools and to access their NASA mentors on Earth visiting virtual labs inside the lunar base (Plant Production, Human Requirements, and Resource Recovery) to conduct computer-simulated experiments bench top experiments that contribute to solving biological problems, for example investigating investigate how to grow food crops efficiently, how to keep optimal levels of oxygen in the living quarters, or how to convert nitrogen to a plant nutrient forming mission teams to design, balance and test individual CELSS systems using interactive simulators BioBLAST Reforms Science Education BioBLAST's ultimate success will be measured by the extent to which it has a positive impact on the teaching of biology for as many students as possible. The designers of BioBLAST are guided by the curricular suggestions made by the National Research Council on Science Reform. Accordingly, BioBLAST incorporates the following features: A fascinating topic Students play roles as real NASA scientists helping to design a CELSS for extended space exploration Manageable lab activities High school labs will be able to support the kinds of bench-top experiments suggested in the BioBLAST curriculum Challenging problems Students will be facing the same challenges and use many of the same research resources that practicing scientists and engineers use Real scientific inquiry Like practicing scientists, students will work in teams, collect data, form hypotheses, test hypotheses using proper experimental and control groups, report their results, and respond to peer reviews Support from the research community Students will receive support from NASA scientists and engineers currently engaged in CELSS research Student-teacher research community Teachers will act as mentors and collaborators Appropriate assessment tools To properly evaluate BioBLAST's impact on learning and to measure performance on a variety of tasks, BioBLAST will combine existing and new assessment tools

BioBLAST meets National and State Educational Goals Active participation by high school students in this NASA mission is the kind of learning scenario prescribed by the national science education reform guidelines. By accessing authentic science data sets and mentors on-line at NASA, students will gain ownership in the domain of science itself By performing bench-top and simulated experiments, students will develop a meaningful understanding of the scientific process and issues central to the study of global science such as the carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles By deeply comprehending the contingent relationship between plants and their own bodies, it is hoped that BioBLAST students will develop an active dedication to preserving healthy ecosystems on Earth For more information on BioBLAST, send email to BBteam@cotf.edu. Visit BioBLAST online for more information and for links to other exciting sites. (www.cotf.edu/BioBLAST/) For other biodiversity resources on the world wide web, explore these sites: Amazing Environmental Organization WebDirectory Earth's Biggest Environmental Search Engine (www.webdirectory.com/) Biodiversity Information Networks (www.bdt.org) Saving Biodiversity -- Defenders of Wildlife (www.defenders.org) Indigenous Peoples Biodiversity Information Network HomePage (www.ibin.org/) Earthwave Society Mission (www.earthwave.org/) Protecting Biodiversity (www.greenpeace.org/) Biodiversity, Ecology, and the Environment (http://conbio.rice.edu/) Biodiversity and Biological Collections (http://muse.bio.cornell.edu/) Biodiversity and WORLDMAP (www.nhm.ac.uk/) Watch this space for a future Education ForeCAST radio piece focusing on The BioBLAST Project, from The SOUNDPRINT Media Center And listen to another Education ForeCAST report on a virtual space curriculum, Challenger Learning Centers, from WAMU-FM Download a free copy of Real Audio here