Most of us will probably never get a chance to go to the moon, but thanks to a unique program from the County of San Diego Parks and Recreation Department, University of California San Diego and Sally Ride Science, 37 fourth- through eighth-graders in the Spring Valley area got to do the next best thing.The students took part in the Spring Valley Community Center’s 2012 Youth Science & Environmental Alliance program that featured an up-close look at the moon’s lunar surface direct from NASA.
“The mission was called GRAIL and it was NASA’s first planetary mission carrying instruments specifically for the purpose of education,” said Renelle Nailon, Spring Valley Community Center director. “The kids are having a real good time and it’s been a lot of fun.”
GRAIL stands for Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory and the mission features the use of MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students) cameras. While twin GRAIL satellites orbit the moon, the MoonKAM gives students a unique opportunity to snap their own photos of the moon’s surface.
As part of the program, students use the images to study lunar features like craters and learn about potential future landing sites on the moon. Participants were able to download the photos and print them using the community center’s new Cox Tech Center computers.
The current session ends tomorrow, but plans are already in the works for next year’s program which will feature satellite images of the earth taken from space.
