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NASA's 50th Anniversary Celebrations

School students from Chennai and Bangalore interact with NASA experts on Video Conference.

2008 marked NASA's (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) 50th year and as part of its golden anniversary celebrations, NASA connected with school students around the globe in an interactive distance learning session via Video Conferencing. Twenty schools-ten from the United States and ten from other countries-were chosen to participate in the live interactive distance learning programme and virtual birthday celebrations that were held on 13th November, 2008.

Two schools from India-the PSBB Millennium School, Chennai and Millennium School, Bangalore-participated in the live Video Conference from a Reliance World in their respective cities. Around 30 students of PSBB Millennium School, Chennai assembled at the Reliance World in Annasalai, Chennai and 20 of their counterparts gathered at the Reliance World located in J.P. Nagar, Bangalore.

Both the Reliance World locations were then connected to the Kennedy Space Center, USA. The live interactive session began with a welcome introduction by a NASA engineer and a scientist and a brief presentation on NASA's Distance Learning Network followed by a video clip about NASA @ 50 from Discovery Education Channel.

This was followed by a Q&A session with the NASA engineer and scientist. The students asked questions on topics ranging from NASA's thoughts on India's space mission-Chandrayaan-1 to global warming and to what it takes to be a NASA astronaut and the NASA experts were more than happy to feed their curiosity.

The schools were then asked to wish NASA a Happy Birthday in their own unique style/tradition. PSBB Millennium School students sang the Happy Birthday song in eight different Indian languages and cut a cake. Millennium School students recited poems and presented NASA with a birthday card.

The session concluded with a presentation of the NASA Portal & Discovery's NASA @ 50 website resources.

For the students who participated in the live distance learning programme with NASA, it was a red letter day, fond memories of which would be etched in their minds forever.

On that special night we, the students of PSBB Millennium School, were taken through time and space to the world of NASA. We were enthralled upon meeting people who actually worked at NASA and we didn’t even notice time fly as they told us about their experiences and how we could one day join NASA too. At the end of it we just had one thing to say: Sometimes, dreams do come true.

Shruthi. K. Iyengar
Class IX B
PSBB Millennium School

It was my first experience at a live video conference with NASA officials and it was a great one too. The interactive session was useful, interesting and helpful in gaining more knowledge. More such interactive sessions will motivate the younger generation in a positive way.

Sreyas S.
Class IX A
PSBB Millennium School