Embedded Teacher Program

 Wisconsin STEAM Teachers: A unique opportunity for you, your classes, and your school:

• contribute to microgravity research and NASA spaceflight technology 
• develop out-of-this-world demonstration videos for your space sciences, physics, or biology classes. 
• fly like an astronaut, spending more than 11 minutes floating in free-fall.

The Embedded Teacher Program is a partnership between the WSGC and the ZERO-Gravity Corporation to provide opportunities for middle and high-school teachers to develop and fly small experiments and demonstrations on a parabolic flight. Parabolic flights provide periods of sustained microgravity for testing spaceflight technologies, training astronauts, and performing experiments. 

To date, five Wisconsin teachers have flown on ZERO-G’s G-Force One aircraft and brought back video and photographic data from more than dozen small experiments conducted across 150 parabolas. 

2021-2022 Program:

We are pleased to partner with the National Space Society to offer a workshop on microgravity flight basics and curriculum module  development for teachers interested in flying with us. Each year, 2-3 teachers will be selected to perform their experiments on a parabolic flight. WSGC and the NASA Flight Opportunities Program are supporting the design and fabrication of teacher-devised experiments, the flight on ZERO-G’s G-Force One, and the videography of the teacher’s experience. 

Interested? Here’s the process

Rough Timeline

1. August-September 2021: Apply for the WSGC Embedded Teacher Workshop to be conducted in person at Carthage College. Date is TBD but will be during the late fall of 2021. 
2. Fall 2021: Workshop attendees will develop and share microgravity experiments and curriculum to support their courses in the space sciences and traditional STEAM fields.
3. December 2021: One or more experiments and teachers will be selected to fly on the next ZERO-G Research flight in support of the Carthage College Microgravity Team.   
4. Spring 2022: All workshop attendees will be involved in the flight preparations and will receive video and experiment data from the flight(s).
5. Spring 2022: The selected teacher(s) will work with their classes to design and “ground-test” the experiment(s), develop safety data to support the experiment flight, and will produce video lesson plans around their projects. 
6. May 2022: The selected teacher will travel to the ZERO-G facility, receive flight readiness training, and will fly in ZERO-G with their experiments on one flight consisting of approximately 30 parabolas, including five parabolas of lunar and Martian gravity.  
7. Teachers will be asked to share implementation data and post-flight reflections on the experience, engage in media outreach related to the flight, and share flight experience during the summer 2022 Wisconsin Space Conference.  

Workshop Application. Complete each section and remember to hit ‘Submit’ at the bottom of the form.