When the officially , it was a literal and figurative Christmas morning for Jennifer Basalari and about a dozen and half students, who took a break from opening presents to watch the launch together in an online video platform.
The excitement for Webb had been building in Basalari鈥檚 classroom since 2016, when she and other teachers visited a Northrop Grumman laboratory and saw part of the telescope under construction.
That experience, 鈥渃ompletely sucked me in,鈥� said Basalari, who teaches 5th grade STEM classes at Lakemont Elementary School in central Florida. She already is building a science unit for next year around Webb鈥檚 images, which NASA began releasing a little more than a week ago.
The telescope will change 鈥渨hat we understand about science, what we know about black holes and what we know about the beginning of stars and life and potentially the Big Bang,鈥� she told her students.
Her enthusiasm has been so infectious that about a third of the kids joining her that morning were former students, who wanted to experience Webb鈥檚 launch with the teacher who had gotten them so jazzed about the project.
Though pictures鈥攍et alone teaching resources鈥攆rom Webb are only beginning to emerge, Basalari predicts that 糖心动漫vlog around the country will make use of the show-stopping images to teach not just about astronomy, but about the scientific method, and how a big project comes together.
鈥淭hose images are going to be kind of the hook, because I don鈥檛 care who you are, if you鈥檙e looking at an image of space, especially new ones that haven鈥檛 been seen, 99 percent of people are intrigued and interested in that,鈥� she said.
A powerful tool for teaching science
The Webb telescope, the most powerful ever built, enables scientists to see parts of the universe as they were about 200 million years after the Big Bang, That鈥檚 fairly close to the beginning of time, given that the universe is projected to be more than 13 billion years old. Through the images, scientists鈥攁nd schoolchildren鈥攃an glimpse some of the earliest galaxies ever formed.
The concept can be overwhelming to seasoned scientists, much less 7th graders.
One place to start helping students wrap their minds around it: an included with .
It gives students an understanding of the size of the telescope鈥攊t鈥檚 as tall as a three-story building and as long as a tennis court鈥攁s well as its mission. (Yes, it is indeed hunting for planets with conditions that may support life as we know it.)
Another resource: Basalari has shown her students a documentary, produced by Northrop Grumman which tells the story of Webb鈥檚 creation. It offers students a real-life window into how mistakes and miscalculations inform discovery and invention.
鈥淵ou鈥檙e not always going to be right. It鈥檚 OK to be wrong and go back and fix it,鈥� she tells her class. Building the telescope took more than 20 years鈥攍onger than her students have been alive鈥攂ecause the scientists and engineers 鈥渉ad to go back and modify and redesign鈥� when something initially didn鈥檛 work as expected.
The Webb telescope uses infrared cameras, which can see through the dust clouds in the universe, where new stars and planets form.
That gives teachers 鈥渁n excuse to bring in [the topic of] infrared radiation and learn about how it works and demonstrate, for example, that there are literally colors you cannot see,鈥� said Jeff Adkins, who teaches astronomy and physics at Deer Valley High School in Antioch, Calif., outside San Francisco.
He鈥檚 been looking at a NASA resource entitled 鈥� which, among other things, offers some real world applications for calculus and Algebra.
And Adkins is on the lookout for 鈥渄eep field images鈥� from the telescope鈥攅ssentially pictures of empty space鈥攖hat his students may be able to use to count galaxies in a particular area, with the ultimate goal of coming up with a crude estimate of how many galaxies there are in the universe.
Inspiring students and capturing their imagination
The telescope also is bringing back new images of planets beyond those identified in Earth鈥檚 solar system. So Greg Flick, a 9th-grade science teacher in North Syracuse, N.Y., wants to send his students, some of whom are obsessed with science fiction franchises like Star Wars, planet-hunting.
He鈥檚 looking for data sets that scientists used to pinpoint new planets. He鈥檒l make them user-friendly for his classes, allowing students to try and replicate the professionals鈥� work.
鈥淗opefully it will engender the same sense of discovery that the actual scientists [have] when they actually find something,鈥� said Flick. Like Basalari, he got to see part of Webb鈥檚 construction, in his case at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Flick, who is part of , a public education program, said the agency typically has excellent materials for teachers. NASA has already posted some materials on Webb, but for now, 鈥渢here鈥檚 not a lot out there鈥� just yet because the telescope is only beginning to send back images that will inform years of scientific inquiry.
The imagination-capturing pictures are part of the Webb鈥檚 program of letting, 鈥渢he world know 鈥榳e鈥檙e up and running,鈥欌�� he said. 鈥淎nd I鈥檓 grateful for that and follow it avidly.鈥�
One figure that may be as inspiring to some students as those otherworldly images: Gregory Robinson, the Webb program director who has been . Robinson, who is Black, is the ninth of 11 children, born to sharecroppers in rural Danville, Va. He grew up in a largely segregated South.
鈥淚 do think he will be joining the ranks of those scientists that are held up鈥� for K-12 students, said Christine Royce, a professor of teacher education at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania and a past president of the National Science Teaching Association.
Royce is hoping that will happen 鈥渁s soon as possible,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e often just think about scientists after the fact. We鈥檙e beginning to try and be more cognizant of talking about current scientists,鈥� particularly those from diverse backgrounds.
鈥淚t is important for students to see people who look like them鈥� doing groundbreaking work, she said. Robinson has , crediting his teachers, parents, and church for telling him he could do anything he wanted if he got an education.
That message needs to be championed along with the space images Robinson helped make possible, Royce said. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 important for kids to hear, for teachers to repeat, for [that] information to be shared.鈥�
