Teacher-Astronaut Out to Lift Academic Sights of Students

NASA underlines educational agenda of shuttle mission.

Washington

The space shuttle Endeavour, slated to begin an 11-day mission Aug. 7, will carry an educational payload that includes two “growth chambers” loaded with basil and lettuce seeds, and a list of activities to be led by teacher-turned-astronaut Barbara R. Morgan .

The activities targeted to K-12 students are add-ons to the shuttle crew’s primary missions, which include attaching an 11-foot truss segment to the orbiting International Space Station, NASA officials announced last week.

Joyce Winterton, NASA’s assistant administrator for education, said the agency’s educational goals include attracting, retaining, and improving students for the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. With that link to the so-called STEM subjects, the space agency is sounding a national policy theme that has seen renewed...