Sally Ride Earth Knowlegde Acquired by Middle School Students (Sally Ride EarthKAM)
Research Area: Educational Demonstrations
Expedition(s): 2-ongoing
Principal Investigator(s): ● Sally Ride, PhD, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla,
California
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
Sally Ride Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students (Sally Ride EarthKAM) is a
NASA education program that enables thousands of students to photograph and examine Earth
from a space crew's perspective. Using the Internet, the students control a special digital
camera mounted aboard the International Space Station (ISS). This enables them to photograph
the Earth's coastlines, mountain ranges, and other geographic items of interest from the unique
vantage point of space. The team at Sally Ride EarthKAM then posts these photographs on the
Internet for the public and participating classrooms around the world to view.
EARTH BENEFITS
Sally Ride EarthKAM offers a powerful way for students to investigate Earth from the unique
perspective of space. The image collection is posted on the Internet for both public use and
participating classrooms around the world. In addition to the raw images, the Sally Ride
EarthKAM Data-system contains selected images that have been annotated and even more
images that can be displayed as overlays on various format maps. Learning guides and activities
are available to support education in Earth science, space science, geography, social studies,
mathematics, communications, and even art. The concepts in these projects support the
National Science Education Standards, National Math Education Standards, National Geography
Standards, and the National Science Education Teaching Standards.
Map of countries participating in the Sally Ride EarthKAM missions.