Spotlight on Partners: NASA Educational Programs at Your Center

Information by State  Print version

Description:

Neighborhood Networks centers across the country are partnering with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to become part of the Imagine Mars Project. A national arts, sciences, and technology education initiative, the Imagine Mars Project teams students with scientists, engineers, artists, and civic leaders to design and share a futuristic Mars community. Through the experience, youth explore their home community and decide what cultural, scientific, and artistic elements are important to a community's success. This session describes how Neighborhood Networks centers can partner with NASA to launch this unique educational experience for their center.

Presenters:

Jayme Bonds
Executive Director
Mandela Residents Cooperative Association
Phone: (617) 445-8100

David Delgado
Imagine Mars Creative Lead
NASA
Phone: (818) 393-5144

Kay Tobola
Educational Specialist
Imagine Mars
NASA
Phone: (281) 483-7389

Jayme Bonds serves as the executive director of Mandela Residents Cooperative Association. Ms. Bonds has extensive experience in the nonprofit sector and community service. At the age of 10, Ms. Bonds was introduced to community service when her mother enlisted her help registering senior community members to vote and ensuring they had transportation to the polls. She was also a candy striper at the children's hospital and volunteered at a daycare center during school vacations. At 14, Ms. Bonds launched her professional career as an assistant with a summer works program. Ever since, she has been dedicated to helping people achieve their goals and strengthening the community. Ms. Bonds was awarded a fellowship at Northeastern University's Community Enrichment Program.

David Delgado is an outreach coordinator for NASA's Mars Public Engagement Team and works as the Imagine Mars creative lead. The Imagine Mars Project, cosponsored by NASA and the National Endowment for the Arts, is a national arts, sciences, and technology education initiative that brings together schoolchildren, scientists, and civic leaders to design a sustainable Mars community for 100 people. Understanding the health of their own community becomes the students' primary research goal. Adapting these elements to the environment of Mars becomes their creative challenge. Students then tell their community story through the arts. There have been murals, digital stories, modern dance performances, architecture projects, and public garden designs, to name a few. Mr. Delgado's unique combination of skills bring the Imagine Mars Project to life. Mr. Delgado majored in anthropology at University of California, Los Angeles. He taught English in South America for two years before returning to Southern California and graduating from Pasadena's Art Center College of Design.

Kay Tobola is an educational specialist with the Astromaterials Research and Science Exploration (ARES) directorate at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. In this position, Ms. Tobola develops and implements formal and informal education projects for NASA's Mars Public Engagement and Solar System Exploration Education and Outreach Forum, as well as ARES. Ms. Tobola's areas of expertise include curriculum development, workshop development and delivery for formal and informal education audiences, and classroom instruction in the middle school with a focus on interdisciplinary teaching, gifted and talented instruction, and emerging readers. Previously, Ms. Tobola was a middle school language arts teacher for 26 years. In 1993, she became a member of a scientists/teachers partnership with ARES at Johnson Space Center and helped to develop astromaterials and astrobiology curricula. Ms. Tobola's publications include Exploring Meteorite Mysteries: A Teachers' Guide with Activities for Earth and Space Sciences; Destination Mars; and Fingerprints of Life.

Imagine Mars