2020 Annual Banquet Speaker
Science The Key to the Future
Dr. Jeff Goldstein
Director for the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education
Human Exploration: It's Not a Book of Knowledge...It's a Journey
Thursday, November 12 | 4:30-5:30 PM
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Every parent remembers that magical time when our children first began to speak, that moment marking the beginning of an unending stream of questions. In our children we can see our humanity—our innate curiosity—and recognize the obvious…that we are born to explore!
Science and more generally STEM, in all its seeming complexity, is nothing but a means to organize curiosity. A way to empower one’s self to ask the gift of a question, and to hone the art that allows navigation through the noise of the universe around us in quest of an answer. It is an emotional, joyful, and wondrous journey that hopefully allows the traveler to pull back the veil of nature just a little, see how she operates, and celebrate the accomplishment. STEM education is no different. It is the means by which we immerse our children in the act of journey by letting them do science, and acknowledging it is their journey. As teachers, our sweet reward is seeing the joys of learning wash over them. And as teachers, we are charged with nothing less than patiently and gently launching the explorations of an entire generation. What you don’t know is a gift…because you can ask a question and start a journey. Dr. Goldstein’s website: http://doctorjeff.org/bio/ Dr. Goldstein is also a certified Zumba instructor. During this time of social distancing he is offering live streaming Zumba classes. Click on this link http://doctorjeff.org/zumba-cardio-dance/zumba-classes-live-streamed/ for a lively dance class on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. Class times are on the website. Email him to get on his email list.
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Jeff Goldstein hosting the SSEP Conference at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum July 1-2, 2019. He is standing under Space Shuttle Discovery, which placed the Hubble Space Telescope in Low Earth Orbit in 1990, and conducted two servicing missions to the telescope in 1997 and 1999.
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Dr. Goldstein's Bio
As NCESSE Center Director, Dr. Goldstein is responsible for overseeing the creation and delivery of national science education initiatives with a focus on earth and space. These include programs for schools, families, and the public; professional development for grade K-12 educators; and exhibitions for museums and science centers. Initiatives are meant to provide a window on the nature of science and the lives of modern-day explorers, with special emphasis on not just what is known about Earth and space but how it has come to be known. Programs embrace a Learning Community Model for science education.
Jeff oversaw the creation of the Center’s national science education initiatives, including the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP), which immerses hundreds of students across each participating community in the real space program, with a proposed microgravity experiment in each community selected to launch on a SpaceX rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and be transported to the International Space Station where it is operated by the astronauts.
About SSEP: Since SSEP program inception in June 2010, there have been 16 SSEP flight opportunities—SSEP on STS-134 and STS-135, which were the final flights of Space Shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis; and SSEP Missions 1 through 14 to to the International Space Station. A total of 191 communities have participated in the program, reflecting 42 States and the District of Columbia in the U. S., 5 Provinces in Canada, and a community in Brazil.
Through the first 16 SSEP flight opportunities, a total of 126,600 grade 5-16 students across 2,496 schools were fully immersed in microgravity experiment design and proposal writing, 25,518 flight experiment proposals were received from student teams, and 314 experiments were selected for flight. Through Mission 13, 147,400 students across the entire grade preK-16 pipeline were engaged in their communities’ broader STEAM experience, submitting 120,670 Mission Patch designs.
All 281 experiments selected for flight through SSEP Mission 13 have now flown. The Mission 13 experiments launched on SpaceX-18 on July 25, 2019, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL, and returned to Earth on August 27, 2019. Another 33 experiments are expected to launch in October 2020 as the Mission 14 Apollo payload of experiments on SpaceX-21, launching from the Cape.
As Director of the Voyage National Program, he led the inter-organizational team that permanently installed the Voyage model Solar System on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in front of the Smithsonian and is author of the storyboards. The exhibition is dedicated to an understanding of Earth’s place in space. The Center is now permanently installing replicas in communities world-wide (see Voyage in DC, Houston, Corpus Christi, and Kansas City.) (Contact Dr. Goldstein if you’d like to explore a Voyage installation in your community.)
Jeff also oversees Journey through the Universe—a national science education initiative that engages entire communities—students, teachers, families, and the public. The program has engaged 200,000 students in 1,550 schools across the U.S. with 100 Visiting Researchers – scientists and engineers from over 25 research organizations reflecting government, academia, and industry, including 7 NASA Centers.
Jeff was Director for the Center’s activities supporting NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft mission to Mercury, which included establishment of the MESSENGER Educator Fellows, a corps of master science teachers. The Fellows provided training for 25,000 teachers on curricular content for Solar System science and exploration over the Mission lifetime from 2004-2015, translating into experiences for over 1 million students.
He also created, directs, and is the principal presenter for the Family Science Night program at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, which has seen participation by over 56,000 attendees from over 200 Washington, DC, metro area schools.
Jeff’s planetary science research includes the development of techniques for measuring global winds on other planets using large telescopes on Earth. His research has produced the first direct measurement of the global winds above the clouds on Venus, and the first measurement of the global winds on Mars.
Jeff received his B.A. in physics from City University of New York and both his M.S. and Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Jeff oversaw the creation of the Center’s national science education initiatives, including the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP), which immerses hundreds of students across each participating community in the real space program, with a proposed microgravity experiment in each community selected to launch on a SpaceX rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and be transported to the International Space Station where it is operated by the astronauts.
About SSEP: Since SSEP program inception in June 2010, there have been 16 SSEP flight opportunities—SSEP on STS-134 and STS-135, which were the final flights of Space Shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis; and SSEP Missions 1 through 14 to to the International Space Station. A total of 191 communities have participated in the program, reflecting 42 States and the District of Columbia in the U. S., 5 Provinces in Canada, and a community in Brazil.
Through the first 16 SSEP flight opportunities, a total of 126,600 grade 5-16 students across 2,496 schools were fully immersed in microgravity experiment design and proposal writing, 25,518 flight experiment proposals were received from student teams, and 314 experiments were selected for flight. Through Mission 13, 147,400 students across the entire grade preK-16 pipeline were engaged in their communities’ broader STEAM experience, submitting 120,670 Mission Patch designs.
All 281 experiments selected for flight through SSEP Mission 13 have now flown. The Mission 13 experiments launched on SpaceX-18 on July 25, 2019, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL, and returned to Earth on August 27, 2019. Another 33 experiments are expected to launch in October 2020 as the Mission 14 Apollo payload of experiments on SpaceX-21, launching from the Cape.
As Director of the Voyage National Program, he led the inter-organizational team that permanently installed the Voyage model Solar System on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in front of the Smithsonian and is author of the storyboards. The exhibition is dedicated to an understanding of Earth’s place in space. The Center is now permanently installing replicas in communities world-wide (see Voyage in DC, Houston, Corpus Christi, and Kansas City.) (Contact Dr. Goldstein if you’d like to explore a Voyage installation in your community.)
Jeff also oversees Journey through the Universe—a national science education initiative that engages entire communities—students, teachers, families, and the public. The program has engaged 200,000 students in 1,550 schools across the U.S. with 100 Visiting Researchers – scientists and engineers from over 25 research organizations reflecting government, academia, and industry, including 7 NASA Centers.
Jeff was Director for the Center’s activities supporting NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft mission to Mercury, which included establishment of the MESSENGER Educator Fellows, a corps of master science teachers. The Fellows provided training for 25,000 teachers on curricular content for Solar System science and exploration over the Mission lifetime from 2004-2015, translating into experiences for over 1 million students.
He also created, directs, and is the principal presenter for the Family Science Night program at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, which has seen participation by over 56,000 attendees from over 200 Washington, DC, metro area schools.
Jeff’s planetary science research includes the development of techniques for measuring global winds on other planets using large telescopes on Earth. His research has produced the first direct measurement of the global winds above the clouds on Venus, and the first measurement of the global winds on Mars.
Jeff received his B.A. in physics from City University of New York and both his M.S. and Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Pennsylvania.