Terri Sindelar-Hudkins

Headquarters, Washington, DC December 9, 1994

(Phone: 202/358-1977)

RELEASE: 94-207

LIVE EDUCATIONAL BROADCASTS FROM ANTARCTICA

Students in the U.S. will be able to see and talk to

scientists in Antarctica without leaving their desks during
unique educational broadcasts from the South Pole beginning
Dec. 13.

This ground-breaking educational project, Live From

Antarctica, will virtually transport students to Antarctica
via live televised broadcasts and on-line services. During
one episode, a student from Chicago will "reposition" the
official South Pole geographic marker.

NASA is a co-sponsor of the "Passport To Knowledge"

series that uses the unique power of television and on-line
computer networks to educate students about science through
live, interactive expeditionary learning adventures.

Live From Antarctica, the first in a series of topics

in the "Passport To Knowledge" educational program, is
produced by Maryland Public Television (MPT), Geoff Haines-
Stiles Productions (GHSP) and WTTW/Chicago.

Live From Antarctica is a series of four, 40-minute

electronic field trips to Antarctica and will feature the
first-ever live telecast from the geographic South Pole.

The episodes will be distributed by PBS over Telstar

401 on Dec. 13 and 15, 1994 at 2 p.m. EST; Jan. 10 at 5:30
p.m. EST; and Jan. 19 at 1 p.m. EST. NASA Television, the
agency's distribution system, will transmit the programs
live on Spacenet 2, transponder 5, at 69 degrees West
longitude with horizontal polarization, frequency 3880.0
MHz, audio on 6.8 MHz.

The episodes will show Antarctica's unique status as

a research site governed by international agreements and
how polar research permits scientists to see clues to the
future of the entire planet.

Telecasts will allow students to examine Antarctica's

geology, weather, biology and animal life, and to view
astronomical, climatic and environmental research currently
under way on the Earth's most remote continent.

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The students' guides will be young scientists who

have made scientific achievement their passport to a
lifetime of discovery. Students will question scientists
in Antarctica during each episode. Pre-produced video
reports will introduce and explain the key concepts of each
episode and introduce the participating researchers.

A major highlight of the project will take place Jan.

10 with the first-ever live telecast from the South Pole.
Elizabeth Felton, a seventeen-year-old recent graduate of
the Chicago Public Schools, will use U.S. Geological Survey
data to reposition the copper marker designating Earth's
geographic South Pole. A videotape of the live telecast
will be rebroadcast on Jan. 12 at 2 p.m. EST. Should there
be weather problems with the Jan. 10 live broadcast, the
contingency date is Jan. 12 at 5:30 p.m. EST.

To augment the telecasts, students can participate in

electronic correspondence with Antarctic researchers and
receive updated scientific and weather data.

On-line services will be available through three

sources accessible on Internet: PBS ONLINE's Learning
Link; NASA Spacelink (spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov); and via a
server of NASA's K-12 Internet Project by sending an E-mail
message to listmanager@quest.arc.nasa.gov, leave the
subject line blank and in the body write: subscribe
updates-lfa.

NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA, is the

video gateway for the four broadcasts. Two NASA science
Internet technicians are in Antarctica providing technical
support for the live broadcasts.

The Passport to Knowledge project recently received

a cooperative agreement grant under the NASA Information
Infrastructure Technology and Applications (IITA) program,
which is part of the federal initiative to stimulate a U.S.
National Information Infrastructure, commonly called the
"Information Superhighway."

Antarctica was first connected live to the rest of

the world using satellite, video, voice and network
communications through the ground-breaking efforts of the
NASA Science Internet (NSI) project. NSI is a key element
of NASA's science information systems infrastructure,
providing the research community with reliable electronic
communications access to colleagues, data archives and
computational resources around the world.

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Offices within NASA participating in the project are

the Education Division, Office of Human Resources and
Education; IITA, Office of Aeronautics; NASA Science
Internet, Office of Space Science; Office of Life and
Microgravity Sciences; NASA's Ames Research Center; NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL; and NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.

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NASA press releases and other information are available

automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail
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A second automatic message will include additional
information on the service. Questions should be directed
to (202) 358-4043.