This month, science teachers in middle and high schools from across the Northeast will get the chance to be part of the exploration of space.

Cornell and the Ithaca Sciencenter are hosting a NASA-supported workshop that will take advantage of Cornell's involvement in the space agency's Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission to explore a distant asteroid.

"We're focused on working with teachers and telling them what we do in a way they can directly convey to their students," says Cornell astronomy research associate Beth E. Clark, who will teach the workshops with Kathie Hunt, education coordinator at the Sciencenter.

The two-day workshop, on Nov. 16 and 17, is timed so that teachers can work the material into their curricula before the NEAR spacecraft begins orbiting the asteroid Eros next February. They then can follow the information received from space with their students.

Titled "Using a NASA Mission to Focus Attention on Astronomy and Physics," the workshop is being funded by a $10,000 grant from NASA's Office of Public Outreach. The funding comes from the agency's Initiative to Develop Education through Astronomy and Space Science, which supports start-up educational outreach projects that team educators with scientists. The grant is administered by the Space Telescope Science Institute, NASA's astronomical research center responsible for operating the Hubble Space Telescope. Cornell also is providing supplemental funds.

NEAR's primary mission is to remain in orbit around Eros for one year collecting high-resolution images and other science data. Cornell astronomy Professor Joseph Veverka, who also is chair of the astronomy department, leads the $150 million mission's science team in charge of the visual light camera and near-infrared spectrometer, two of the five science instruments carried by the spacecraft.

Resources are available for 20 middle- and high-school physical science teachers, but only about half those slots have been filled. Each teacher will receive three meteorite samples and a variety of demonstration materials, including videos, slides and activity ideas. Funds will be provided for substitute teachers. One teacher will be selected to be at NEAR mission headquarters at NASA's Applied Physics Laboratory, managed by Johns Hopkins University, when the spacecraft arrives at Eros.

"We've been working with teachers on writing this proposal and in developing the activity agenda for the workshop, and according to their advice the most important things we can provide are materials," says Clark. "We hope to provide them with enough materials and activities for a full unit on asteroid and meteorite astronomy, with the initiative to use our materials by making them very broad in that they apply to basic physical concepts, and making them interesting because they deal with space exploration."

The first day of the workshop will be held at the Sciencenter and will discuss asteroid basics, including the asteroid-meteorite connection, theories of formation and possible changes to existing theories from information sent back by the NEAR spacecraft during its flyby of asteroid Mathilde in June 1997. "We're going to start from the very basics: asking the questions, making measurements and then relating what we've done to what NEAR is actually going to do," says Clark.

The second day of the workshop, at Cornell, will use computer programs to study asteroid orbits and examine web sites for current asteroid search and discovery programs. "We also wanted to dispel some of the popular misconceptions about asteroid impact hazards. If I say the word 'asteroid,' the person on the street will probably think about the impact hazard potential, not so much about their neat scientific interest," says Clark. "So we'd like to start with the neat scientific interest and the real rock samples we have and go from there into the ideas of impact hazard and what's being done by NASA and other institutions to assess the impact hazard."

Middle- and high-school teachers interested in attending the workshop should contact Hunt at the Sciencenter, (607) 272-0600.