Using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Data to Support STEM Education

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) launched on June 18 2009, reached lunar orbit four days later, and has since been returning data from the lunar surface at unprecedented rates. The seven instruments aboard LRO are designed to return data about the lunar surface and surrounding environment in order to give scientists and engineers the opportunity to make informed decisions about an exact location to return humans to the lunar surface. Data gathered by LRO is being incorporated into a variety of products and programs for the K-12 community. Teacher educational kits are available using the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) and the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) data through the Adler Planetarium and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, respectively. The Lunar Student Imaging Project (based on the highly successful Mars Student Imaging Project) will give students an opportunity to serve as principal investigators, allowing them to target a location on the Moon with LROC and be the first to analyze their image. Students will also be able to investigate lunar topography data from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument aboard LRO using a free software package called GRIDVIEW. GRIDVIEW can be used to conduct scientific investigations about topography, lunar geology, and comparative planetology. Students will be given a series of scaffolded lessons using LOLA data and GRIDVIEW and then encouraged to do their own investigations over the entire lunar surface. The benefit of both the LSIP and LOLA educational programs is that students will be given the opportunity to perform scientific investigations using authentic data, which has been recognized as an important factor to promoting student scientific literacy. A screen shot from the GRIDVIEW program showing topographic data from Mars. GRIDVIEW will be used by students to analyze topographic data from the Moon from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.