Mark Dunk’s Blog

I know what you’re thinking. “Isn’t Unklar a science teacher?”  I’m still interested in the other disciplines, though, and the social studies curriculum in Texas has been a hot topic lately.  Here is the link to the draft TEKS.

Photo Credit: USGS

Scientists have agreed to name the plains (called planitia) on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, after planets from Frank Herbert’s literary series “Dune.”  More information here.

Picture credit: InterOrbital.com

Be the first on your block to own your own personal satellite. For only $8000 (PayPal accepted), you can put your own satellite into a self-decaying orbit.  More information can be found here. This opportunity is brought to you by the folks at Interorbital Systems in Mojave CA.

I use a smaller, hand-held vortex cannon in my physics instruction, but the students are always wanting to build a bigger one. This YouTube video might just inspire me to do just that this year.

Image from NASA TV

The most famous tool bag in history will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere on 8-3-2009.  More information here.

 

 

 

Four student teams earned national titles in the U.S. Army’s eCYBERMISSION program July 2, 2009 in a ceremony that showcased the students’ science, math and technology skills while earning those on the winning teams $5,000 in Savings Bonds. eCYBERMISSION is a free, web-based, science, math and technology competition managed from the Research, Development and Engineering Command on Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. The program awarded a total of $1.2 million to 6th through 9th grade students on 96 teams that won at some level of the competition. National winners for eCYBERMISSION won $5,000 in U.S. EE Savings Bonds, in addition to the $3,000 in U.S. EE Savings Bonds they won for being among the 16 regional first-place winners. Members of the other 12 finalist teams received $3,500 in U.S. EE Savings Bonds for competing at the eCYBERMISSION National Judging and Educational Event, which is a free series of educational enrichment activities and events for national finalists held in Washington, D.C. For more information visit the eCYBERMISSION web site, https://ecybermission.apgea.army.mil/.

 

Universe Today provides an awesome collection of pictures from the Space Shuttle Endeavor’s STS 127 mission. I take special interest in this mission since I was fortunate enough to view the launch at Mission Control in Houston. Full collection here.

CNN’s John Zarrella put together this video discussion on the options for NASA after the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010.

We had an amazing storm the other night, and I was able to capture this picture.

A very creative project by Malta to help celebrate IYA2009, the International Year of Astronomy.