Space Shuttle - free detailed panoramic images of Discovery available from NatGeo

The NASA Space Shuttle is retired and the fleet is being sent to museums for display. National Geographic is releasing some very cool, detailed, panoramic images of Discovery.  You can see a few of them below. These are a great way to explore the space shuttles and learn more about them.

To provide an unprecedented look at Discovery and the other retired space shuttles, both inside and out, photographers with National Geographic recently captured more than two dozen ultrahigh-resolution, 360-degree pictures of each orbiter.

See 360-degree HD panorama: space shuttle mid-deck >>

See 360-degree HD panorama: space shuttle's belly >>

Related:

NASA Resources for Educators

National Geographic Resources for Educators 

Orbiter Space Flight Simulator - free for Windows computers

Orbiter is a free Space Flight Simulator for Windows. It is not a web app, but must be downloaded and installed on your computer.

With Orbiter, you can launch and fly the space shuttle. It launches from Kennedy Space Center and then you fly it to rendezvous with the International Space Stations. You can also fly Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Vostok and other spacecraft, including your own design or designs others have made.

The simulator is very realistic and allows you to fly spacecraft, design your own craft, plan interplanetary missions, and learn about space flight and orbital mechanics in a fun way.

This is a great resource for science classes, especially Physical Science, Astronomy, and Physics.

Here are some screen shots from Orbiter:


     

I plan on using this with my Physics classes as part of their end-of-the year rockets project.

A look inside the Space Shuttle Atlantis - very cool!

CollectSPACE has some very cool pictures of the Space Shuttle Atlantis available. These pictures are very interesting and can be used when doing a lesson on space, engineering, or science. Spaceflight is a great way to get students excited about STEM subjects.

Space Shuttle Atlantis flew the final shuttle mission for NASA. It will be displayed for the public at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The pictures of the inside are amazing!

Zooniverse - real science online - great resource

Zooniverse is a very cool project I found out about today. Zooniverse is a collection of "citizen science projects" where citizens contribute to the research and content.

The projects are all about space science: Planet Hunters, Milky Way, Moon Zoo, Solar storms and more. The projects use publicly available information as resources and look for new things about the planets, solar system and more.

The projects are an excellent resource for inquiry based learning in both content and scientific process. There is an education site that has ideas for using Zooniverse in the classroom and there are education resources specifically for the Galaxy Zoo and Solar Stormwatch projects.

There is a huge amount of information and resources available here and they can be used across subjects and grades.

NASA Educators Resources

NASA has a Space Education Web site for educators to use. 

The resources are sorted by type and grade level. 

There are videos, lesson plans, resource links, news and interactive sites on NASA programs and projects. There is also a Student site that students can explore. 

I've used many resources from the site and find them well thought out and easy to use.

The one I have used the most is the Rocketry resources. I do a final project at the end of the year in my Physics classes where they research rockets and the physics of rockets and then build and launch their own model rockets. The students can just go through the Rocketry site and learn about all the different aspects of rocekts. Its a fun, interesting way to end the year.