STARGAZERS: Abstraction & Romanticism for Science Teachers

This Thursday, February 9, Michael Starobin will be joining a keynote panel at the 2017 Space Exploration Educators Conference in Houston, Texas, discussing the nexus of art and science. Later in the day he'll lead a workshop on related topics. He starts the workshop with a talk titled STARGAZERS: Abstraction & Romanticism for Science Teachers. Planning to attend? Stop by and say hello! The plenary keynote begins at 8:30 on Thursday morning.  The workshop begins at 12:45 -- with time for Q&A to follow.

Ice, Ice, Baby

Just back from Greenland, the team is on to new adventures, new projects, and new ideas. But that doesn't change one profound truth: what an extraordinary trip! NASA's IceBridge mission continues to conduct profoundly important-- and profoundly challenging--research about what's happening to Earth's climate. The work takes place far away from ordinary life, with limited creature comfort, and even more limited contact with rhythms of days left behind. It was a privlidge to travel with this extraordinary team, and it will be our great privlidge to do so again someday.

Below you'll find a few links to videos produced on location. The production conditions were tough in every way, but the work was the adventure of a lifetime.

GREENLAND, ON ICE, FROM THE AIR

These remote, icy reaches on Earth may be far, far, far from your ordinary days, but they play a vital role in the character and future  of your home planet.                                                                     Photo by Michael Studinger/NASA

For the month of April we're back on the road. Or…off, off, off road, as the case may be! Cameras in hand and hands firmly in gloves, I'll be traveling to a remote airstrip in Western Greenland called Kangerlussuaq. Embedded with a top-notch team of NASA researchers, the gig is all about telling stories about how to study changed in global ice cover. To do this, I'm embedded with the research team, flying low altitudes transects over remote reaches of polar ice in a retrofitted P3 Otter airplane like something out of Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Star Trek.

The mission is called IceBridge. For news about the project visit NASA's official social media sites at

facebook.com/NasaOperationIcebridge

and on Twitter

@NASA_ICE

For my own, more personal dispatches from the field, you can follow me in Greenland at (assuming my frozen fingers finagle some Wi-Fi)

facebook.com/michael.starobin

on Twitter

@michaelstarobin

And, of course, the weekly blog will not be interrupted, dear readers. Each Monday, check in our latest thoughts about creativity, right here at 1AU Global Media.

Off to Japan!

After years of planning (and three cool movies, of course!), NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission is finally ready for launch.

The launch is scheduled for February 27 at 1:07 EST, all things going well. That's the middle of the night at the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan, but I'll be there, camera rolling, ready to bring the story to the world.

The GPM launch caps an extraordinary adventure for us at 1AU. We have a long history with NASA's Earth science enterprises, and GPM is one of the biggest. Our recent film about the mission called WATER FALLS just opened around the world. The response continues to be extremely positive. In fact, the creative work done on behalf of this mission has again and again invigorated us with opportunities and great moments of inventive life.

Check out my tweets from Japan

@michaelstarobin

to follow the story. I'll be posting pix and URLs to all sorts of cool stuff!

--Michael