Educator Resources

Enter the Firing Room is intended to inspire and motivate middle school students to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics by providing a virtual tour of the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Firing Room. The tour highlights members of the KSC Launch Team who work in the Firing Room, the Space Shuttle systems they work on, and how their experiences exemplify the use of science, math, and technology in real world applications. Students will also find out what inspired the Launch Team members to work for NASA and how students can plan for similar careers.

In addition to reading text, students can engage with a virtual image of the Firing Room and view video clips of both astronauts and KSC personnel. Students will have opportunities to :

• Further explore science, math, and technology content through enhancement activities;
• Take a Challege Quiz to test their knowledge; teh quiz is based on content from throughout the web site and enhancement activities;
• Participate as a Launch Team member in a launch simulation where critical thinking and decision making skills determine a "GO/NOGO" for launch.

Goals and Objectives

• Enable students to see real-world use of basic Science, Math, Technology, and Engineering (SMTEG) concepts that they are learning.
• Allow students to see a diverse set of Kennedy Space Center (KSC) engineers and scientists as role models, providing concrete examples of what they can do with their lives.
• Enhance student performance and attitude toward science and math by seeing real work experts in those fields.
• Provide students with enhancement activities that will assist them in gathering background knowledge useful for the launch simulation sequences.
• Provide educators with lesson sequences in a user friendly format to address specific science content standards.
• Provide educators with correlations to National Education Standards for science, mathematics, and technology.

Lesson Sequences:

• Lesson Sequence #1 Motion and Forces; Newton’s Laws and Model Rockets
• Lesson Sequence #2 Motion and Forces; Problem Based Learning
• Lesson Sequence #3 Properties of Substances
• Lesson Sequence #4 Atmosphere, Weather, and Climate
• Lesson Sequence #5 Science as Inquiry
• Lesson Sequence #6 Science and Technology