Student Projects

It is possible to introduce the topic of spaceflight, (micro-) gravity etc. into the curriculum of high-school students (age 12-18), academic curriculae or even at lower level education. Education materials for classroom lessons and presentations are available.
Lectures can be provided that cover the field of spaceflight especially manned spaceflight activities and microgravity research but also on telecommunication, Earth observation, launch vehicles etc.
Experience from previous school projects provide lessons-material and practical tasks to be performed by students to better understand issues involved in (micro-) gravity research and manned spaceflight. A space project may be part of e.g. the biology / physiology or physics lessons. You may contact us when you are interested to introduce spaceflight related issues into the students curriculum.

For high-school as well as university students it is possible to apply for the possibility to perform gravity related experiments on one of the facilities as described in the section 'Ground Based Research Facilities'

NASA has a large series of educational modules that can be downloaded directly from the DESC site. The modules stored on this server are related to microgravity and manned spaceflight, Mars and rockets.

Some student projects performed in the past that involved gravitational (biological) research and manned missions performed by high school level and university level students:

• 'Hypertaugé' (Taugé onder hyperzwaartekracht). Practical study by Adrian de Groot Ruiz en Chris Weel from the Christelijk Gymnasium Utrecht (high school level). This project was performed in the framework of their biology classes. Text in Dutch.

• The use of in-flight exercise protocols to minimize muscle atrophy and osteoporosis during prolonged spaceflight. Study of literature by: O.M. de Hon, Vrije Universiteit, Faculty of Human Movement Sciences, Specialization: Exercise physiology. (university level). Text in English.

• Exposure of plant pollen to hypergravity: Pallas Athene College, Ede, NL (text in Dutch) (high school level)

• Space Jart: Were Di Scholengemeenschap, Valkenswaard, NL (text in Dutch) (high school level)

• Also from the school in Valkenswaard (NL, high school level) are student made newspapers describing the visit of the Dutch ESA cosmonaut / astronaut Andre Kuipers: Although text is in Dutch you might have a look at these 'pieces of student journalism. See the Spacepaper -1, the Spacepaper-2, the Galaxy newspaper, or the 'Ruimtevaartproject Afsluiting' etc. See also the index on the left hand side.

For links to educational pages / projects are found at the Link page.