UTB/TSC Hosts Space Day for Area Students
By Laura Tillman, The Brownsville Herald, Texas
Jan. 12–UTS-TSC will host its fifth annual NASA Space Day in the Student Union’s Gran Salon today.
More than 600 fifth and eighth graders will attend the event, coming from as far as Zapata County to attend more than 20 activities. This year’s theme is the relationship between the sun and the earth.
Keynote speaker Patricia H. Reiff, a professor of astronomy and physics at Rice University, will speak to the students from 8:20 to 9:15 a.m. This will be her fourth time participating in the event.
“These events really work,” she said. “We can point to examples of graduate students in science who really have been turned onto science through these events.”
Reiff’s research focuses on plasma physics, particularly aurora borealis — otherwise known as the northern lights — and solar-wind magnetosphere coupling.
She has created exhibits for the Houston Museum of Natural Science, served on committees for NASA, and is the director of the Rice Space Institute.
The event will include two transportable e-planetariums from NASA at the event.
“We want to give kids a chance to see a planetarium as good as one they would find in a big city,” she said. She added that she is bringing two this year, since the first time she brought one planetarium and only half of the kids had a chance to go inside.
Registration will begin at 8 a.m. and the activities will end at 4 p.m. For more information, please call Javier Garcia at 956-572-3601.
What: NASA Space Day
When: 8 a.m. — 4 p.m.
Where: UTB/TSC Student Union Gran Salon
Who: Keynote speaker Dr. Patricia Reiff, Director of the Rice Space Institute
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