During Earth Science Week 2012, 19 Earth Explorers gave first-hand accounts of their experience at work, in the field, and in school. Click the links below to navigate to their stories.

REEL Science Communication Contest
Ginger Butcher challenges students to share their video production talents

Believing in Your Research
Atmospheric scientist Brian Kahn discusses the challenges of writing research proposals

The Interesting Questions
Physicist Bryan Killett has learned that the path to knowledge starts with asking questions.

How I Became a Woman@NASA
Educator Sarah Crecelius reflects on how she became part of Women@NASA

A Happy Accident
Graduate student Adelaide Clark reflects on her path into science

Let it Snow
Earth scientist Gail Jackson finds immense beauty in her work

Intuition, Creativity, and Science
Analyst Jason Tackett discovered how creativity is needed not only in music but in science as well.

The Struggles and Rewards of Telling a Story
NASA video producer Ryan Fitzgibbons shares some of the greatest lessons he has learned

Finding Answers to Earth’s Biggest Questions
An unexpected opportunity as a postdoc led Michael Gunson to NASA and a career as an atmospheric scientist

From Thunderstorms to Landslides
Physical scientist Dalia Kirschbaum discovered how her fascination nature could help people

The Road of a Story Teller
How Jefferson Beck’s unusual path led him to NASA, where he works as a video producer

Break Dancing, Climate Science, and Working at NASA
Los Angeles native Josh Fisher shares his unique story and talks about being a climate scientist

California Dreamin’
Climatologist Bill Patzert dreams big and discusses his background in oceanography

Discovering Earth Science
Undergraduate Alex Popinga gets first-hand experience with NASA’s Student Airborne Research Program

A Big Fish in a Small Pond No Longer
Air quality scientist Erica Alston embraced her love for math and science and found a career at NASA

To the Ends of the Earth
Operation IceBridge project manager Christy Hansen travels to the Arctic and Antarctica

Standing on Thin Ice
Polar scientist Thorsten Markus makes measurements in Antarctica

When I was in high school, I loved film. I spent hours in the darkroom experimenting with effects and days creating stop motion clay animation. Today, I am astonished at how much exposure we all have to media. In an age of 24-hour news cycles, video streaming to cell phones, video blogs, and the increased use of video clips in the classroom, students are consuming media almost continuously. One recent study found that 8- to 18-year-old students consume media 10 hours and 45 minutes a day! Perhaps some of those hours could be converted into creating content as opposed to consuming content.

Ginger’s drawings for the Echo the Bat book being compared to the press proofs during the print production process. Credit: Ginger Butcher.

Excited students pet Echo the Bat at a puppet show in the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Visitor’s Center. Credit: NASA.

NASA’s Tour of the Electromagnetic Spectrum – Book and DVD – with awards. Credit: Ginger Butcher.

Now I want to go further. I want to share the exciting aspects of my job by challenging students to develop videos to communicate NASA science. I am still fascinated by video - it is an incredible medium to work with and communicate. A recent Neilson Group study reveals that user-generated content is the 3rd most popular genre of video consumption for teens. The REEL Science Communication Contest invites high school students to create content for middle school kids. I hope that this opportunity will challenge students to get creative combining NASA imagery and visualizations with their own content (sock puppets, animation, and video effects) to excite young student in NASA science. It has been a rewarding experience for me, and I hope I can share this excitement with students.

Entries are due by Feb. 15, 2013. See http://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/reelscience for more information. Winning videos will be posted on NASA’s website. Winners will get to work with NASA scientists and communications staff to produce an earth science feature video in July 2013.

Post by Ginger Butcher, Education and Public Outreach lead for NASA’s Aura Mission.

Brian Kahn works on a research proposal at his desk. Credit: Brian Kahn.

Being a scientist is not easy. It is certainly rewarding and challenging, but it is never easy. I knew fairly early on in my life that I wanted to be my own boss and basically work for myself. That may seem strange, given that I am a scientist who works for NASA; we have managers and bosses like anyone else does.

For many scientists at my lab, we work fairly independently and are expected to carve out our own research directions, and eventually bring in our own research funding, much like a professor at a university. It is certainly possible to work in particular programs that are financially supported by other scientists, but you have much less freedom than if you have your own research program. I wanted to be one of those scientists that could bring in the funding to employ myself, and maybe even others, giving me a small group of people to work with on my ideas.

To do this, you need to have an established reputation -- and a good one at that -- and manage to convince your colleagues that your ideas not only have merit but are worth funding support from the government. Research dollars are not infinite and the science world is very competitive for those funds. You either sink or swim.

Brian Kahn is an atmospheric scientist at NASA JPL. Credit: NASA.

I spent a lot of time interacting with scientists who were much more experienced than I was, and saw that they often wrote proposals to help support their research. Most of the time they failed -- in fact, the average for funded proposals was around 25–30% at that time (and even lower now). I knew that in order to be a successful scientist, I had to learn how to write a successful proposal and stand out from the crowd.

So, with the encouragement of my postdoctoral advisor, I started writing proposals. Proposals take months of preparation: thinking about what you want to do after you see the announcement released; writing the proposal and making very clear the ideas you want to work on; making sure your ideas fit with the proposal objectives; putting together a budget and dealing with days’ worth of bureaucratic stuff; passing proposal drafts back and forth between colleagues, and trying to reconcile completely different opinions on what we should say and do; and lastly, making sure the proposal is submitted by the due date. There are no exceptions: if it isn’t complete by the due date and in the exact format requested, the propsal disappears into the circular file. And there goes all of that effort and lost opportunity.

My first proposal was awful. It was so bad that the review panel never bothered notifying me of the result or sending their evaluation to me. In hindsight, it was probably best. I call that my “practice” proposal. The second one was a little better. I thought about the ideas I wanted to work on more than the first, but I never felt entirely confident with it. The reviews said it had “potential” but did not fund it. It is certainly easy to give up after a few tries and think of yourself as one of those scientists that will always have to work for someone else. Fortunately, I am more stubborn than that.

About a year later, a new proposal opportunity came along that allowed me to take my doctoral work on studying clouds in Earth’s atmosphere further. For a long time I had thought that it would be natural to study clouds with several different satellite instruments. Luckily, the proposal opportunity was looking for precisely that. I worked hard to make my proposal clear and concise, and explain why this scientific problem was important and deserved to be supported. I edited the proposal for weeks, talked with many colleagues, and was very excited about it. I felt like this proposal was written differently – I really wanted to do the work, and I knew the research would be highly beneficial. I believed in what I was writing.

A year later, I received a letter from NASA headquarters. It said my proposal was “selectable” but, at the time, they were unsure how much money they would have. I would have to wait a few months. Talk about torture! So, I waited…and waited. Finally, another letter arrived that said my proposal was “selected for funding”. When I read those words, I was ecstatic. It felt as though all of those hard years in school had finally paid off: I managed to convince people to support my work with money. The best part was that I would be working on something I really enjoyed. That is what makes my career so rewarding.

Post by Brian Kahn, atmospheric scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Read the full-length Explorer article on Brian, Daydreaming About Weather

Before college, I answered the phone for an internet service provider. My schedule and activities were rigid: every day, I worked the same hours and did the same things.

When I graduated, I got a job at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Now I have a lot more flexibility and many opportunities for collaboration. I set my own hours, and I am able to work on projects that I’m excited about. My boss listens to my ideas, and we work together to study the Earth. I also get paid to travel the world. For example, I wrote this post on a train to Berlin. I was in Germany to give a presentation at the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) science team meeting.

GRACE satellites measure the Earth's changing gravity field. Gravity is stronger in places with more mass, like on top of a mountain. Water also has mass, so gravity is temporarily stronger in an area after a heavy rainstorm. Each month, GRACE measures the strength of gravity at every point on Earth. These observations allow scientists to see how mass (mainly water) moves on the Earth's surface.

Right now, I'm using GRACE data to study changes in gravity due to ocean tides. I recently suggested that some Antarctic ice streams (fast-moving glaciers) are affected by ocean tides farther inland than we'd previously thought. The ocean tides are effectively shaking loose the ice streams, hastening their slide into the sea.

Greenland's ice sheet is melting so rapidly that the gravity over Greenland is getting weaker every year. GRACE also sees similar melting in the glaciers and ice sheets of West Antarctica, Patagonia, Alaska, and the Himalayas.

GRACE data reveals a loss of ice in Greenland. Credit: NASA.

GRACE also observed the lack of rainfall in the Amazon during 2005, which was regarded as the worst drought in over a century. However, the 2010 Amazon drought might have been even worse.

Watching these tragic events unfold through GRACE has been profoundly unsettling. On the one hand, I'm glad that we have so many satellites observing climate change, because ignoring this problem won't make it go away. On the other hand, it can be very discouraging. The scientific community has been collecting data for the past two centuries that shows Earth's climate is warming, and most of the warming is very likely due to increases in CO2 emissions. However, we've sometimes failed to communicate this to the general public.

Scientists are trained to be our own worst critics. We tend to emphasize what we don't know because that's where new discoveries emerge, but this often means we sometimes do a poor job of emphasizing what we do know.

Here's my advice to anyone who's thinking about becoming a scientist. Admitting what you don't know is the first step on the path to knowledge. Ask interesting questions, and seek out answers to what puzzles you. The true test of a scientist is whether you can admit there are things you may not know yet and keep struggling in order to reach the frontiers of knowledge.

Post by Bryan Killett, physicist working on GRACE at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

I was never one of those kids that knew they wanted to be a doctor or an astronaut in 1st grade. I wanted to try everything, at least once. I may not have tried everything, but I have followed the opportunities that came my way. I always want to be doing something that I am passionate about, that informs and interacts with the public, and has a basis in Earth science. The rest has fallen into place.

Elementary school lit the spark that became my love for science. At school, working scientists assisted with hands-on experiments. I learned to hypothesize, inquire, and test instead of fill in blanks on a worksheet. Each teacher took the time to provide an authentic curriculum. They also had the time to focus on each student and create an atmosphere where students were passionate about learning.

Sarah with her parents, Cindy and David Crecelius. Credit: Sarah Crecelius.

My parents are also to thank, as they never grew weary of endless questioning. They were always prepared to answer why the sky was blue, why the grass was green, how does this work, or how does that work.

Middle school continued to foster my desire to learn. My math and science teachers created a personal relationship with each student and treated us like adults, holding us accountable for our actions. The effort we put into our work turned into accomplishments we took pride in.

Everything started to come together in High school. The textbook and classroom theories I had been taught were applied to the real world. I saw how STEM topics were connected and how everything was related. I also faced one of my first struggles. As a junior, I was told it is not an accomplishment to be a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none. At the time I considered the comment an insult, but that comment drove me to want to experience everything – from sports to clubs to other extracurriculars to new friends -- learn about myself, my strengths, and my weaknesses. I hadn’t decided on an exact career, but that was ok! My experiences provided a foundation for my passion for Earth science.

Sarah with the president of Ohio State University, Gordon Gee. Credit: Sarah Crecelius.

Being one of few girls in the geography department at The Ohio State University was a struggle as well as an opportunity. I learned that hard work and going above and beyond turned achieving a goal into a great personal accomplishment. Pride in my work helped ensure that I did my best. This character trait is extremely valuable in the working world.

Sarah working at Smithsonian, hooking ventilation up to our research chambers, researching the effect of elevated C02 on Phragmites Australis. Credit: Sarah Crecelius.

Finding a job after college was a challenge. I quickly found that being persistent yet respectful was another helpful trait; I often followed up after job interviews and asked what skills I need to improve when I did not receive a job offer. As a result, I improved with each interview. My experiences have taken me from working with chief meteorologists in broadcasting in Ohio to living in Maryland and assisting with CO2 research at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. While it wasn’t evident at the time, each opportunity helped prepare me for my current position. I very much subscribe to the sentiment Thomas Huxley expressed when he said “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something”.

Sarah Crecelius. Credit: NASA.

Today I am proud to be working at NASA as a young professional. The day I felt like a colleague and no longer the newbie particularly stands out in my memory. I have found more than a job; I have found a place where I feel that the work I do is important and contributes to the betterment of society. NASA has been and will continue to be a leader in STEM careers, innovation, and research. It is important to inspire younger generations to pursue projects that help us better understand our planet and to engage the public to support NASA and other science organizations.

That is how I came to be a Woman@NASA, a story I am honored to share.

Written by Sarah Crecelius, Education and Outreach Coordinator at NASA's Langely Research Center.

Make sure to read Sarah's interview on Women@NASA. Then check out the other Women@NASA Earth Science Week interviews with Michelle Gierach and .

Adelaide Clark stands in front of the NRAO Radio telescope in Green Bank, WV on a Governor’s School Field Trip, Summer 2006. Credit: Abby Peltier.

Adelaide Clark works in the lab at the University of Arkansas, Summer 2010. Photo Credit: Suzi Gordon.

Adelaide Clark helps repair an instrument on the P-3B. Photo Credit: Chris Foster.

I say that my career in atmospheric sciences was an “accident,” but that’s not completely true. Together, the events have defined my life, but I did not consciously make any single decision to put me on this path. I didn’t wake up one morning and decide to be an atmospheric scientist. As a matter of fact, I woke up every day for the majority of my high school career with a different path for my life in mind. It’s important not to limit yourself. Consider all your options and take the ones that excite your soul (and terrify you a little bit). You never know where you’ll end up.

Post by Adelaide Clark, graduate student at Baylor University.

Have you ever looked at a piece of art or listened to music and been filled with wonder that such a thing existed? When I look at all the different snowflake shapes, I find their beauty is awe-inspiring. But I am also amazed by what scientists are capable of: our satellites can help predict floods, droughts, and landslides; help with agriculture; determine if a cyclone might be intensifying; and be used to improve weather and climate change forecasting.

To be able to do such great things for human society with a satellite science mission makes me feel that I am helping all of us. It is incredibly important for us to understand the hydrology and energy cycles of the earth and the work that my colleagues and I are doing can help increase our knowledge.

I chanced upon this career. I grew up in Florida because my father was a Physics Professor at Florida State University. When I went to college, I decided to study Computer Science instead of physics. But about halfway through my coursework with Computer Science, I realized that I really didn’t want to sit in front of a computer for the rest of my career. I switched to become an Electrical Engineering major and enjoyed it.

One day I saw a picture of a hurricane taken from a satellite and I knew, I just knew, that I had found exactly what I wanted to do: remote sensing of the Earth. I eventually ended up at Georgia Institute of Technology to work on a doctoral degree in remote sensing of rain and ice in clouds in the Electrical Engineering department. After I started working at NASA, I further focused on the science remote sensing (estimating) of falling snow. As the Deputy Project Scientist of the Global Precipitation Measurement mission, I get to use both my engineering and science skills. While I had expected that I would be leaving physics and my days in front of computers behind when I began my Electrical Engineering major, my career involves much of both. But I love it!

Photos of snowflakes taken near Toronto, Canada during a 2012 field campaign to measure and understand falling snow processes. Credit: University of Manitoba, ground instruments.

The complexities of falling snow are great in terms of snowflake shape, melting fraction, and surface snowpack characteristics. Much work is needed to understand these properties of falling snow. Maybe you could help by studying engineering, meteorology, atmospheric science, or computer modeling. I look forward to seeing YOU in this field in the future.

Post by Gail Jackson, physical scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. Jackson uses NASA satellites to study falling snow and other precipitation.

I was a musician working at a Pizza Hut before beginning college, which, in my case, was synonymous with poor. Looking for a brighter future (i.e., more money), I enrolled at Kansas State University as a computer systems major. The alluring thing about this major for me was that it required creative problem solving and had the promise of big bucks. During my time there I learned about programming and computer hardware.

However, the most important thing to happen to me was a course I took in calculus. Before I started college I assumed that math wasn’t for me. As it turned out, I found mathematics very intuitive. I enjoyed the creativity and elegance that came with problem solving, much like the creativity I enjoyed playing music. My original childhood passion was astronomy, and if I enjoyed mathematics then I reasoned that I could do well studying astronomy or physics.

With this in mind, I wrapped up my associates degree in computer systems and changed majors to physics in which I earned my bachelor’s degree. I became interested in the physics of light and lasers, so I did research as an undergraduate in a high-intensity ultrafast laser facility at the James R. Macdonald Laboratory at Kansas State University. I wrote computer code for graduate researchers that helped with their experiments and also spent six months assembling a laser system.

In graduate school, atmospheric science was an attractive path because I could apply the physics I learned to important problems such as climate and climate change. When I sent out my application to graduate schools, my soon-to-be advisor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign saw that I had experience with lasers and thought that I could work with data from the new (at the time) CALIPSO satellite which uses lasers to study the atmosphere. I hadn’t thought about working with satellites before I met him, but because it sounded interesting and involved lasers and the physics of the atmosphere, I jumped on board. I spent the next two years studying CALIPSO measurements to learn how aerosol properties change near clouds – a topic of significant uncertainty in climate science.

Eventually, I was ready to look for a job and, as it happened, an opportunity opened up for an analyst with the CALIPSO science team at NASA Langley Research Center. Since I had been working with CALIPSO data for two years and my interest in optics and aerosols fit in well with the team, I was offered the job, which I eagerly accepted – and every day since I have been glad that I did.

Working for the CALIPSO satellite mission is very exciting. I get to find creative solutions to complicated problems and work with scientists to understand what data from CALIPSO is telling us about Earth’s atmosphere. In April 2010, I worked with colleagues to examine the distribution and optical properties of volcanic ash that had erupted from the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull and disrupted air traffic in Europe. NASA Headquarters asked several Earth observing satellite groups, including ours, to help identify plume location and provide guidance to air traffic controllers.

Since I have been with the CALIPSO team, my colleagues and I have also developed products for near-real time air quality monitoring and for climate modelers. I feel immense satisfaction that I work with a team that provides the high quality data that climate researchers need to solve the important issue of climate change.

It hasn’t been a straight path to get where I am today, but I am very happy with where I’ve landed.

Post by Jason Tackett.

Jason is an analyst/programmer for the NASA satellite mission, CALIPSO at NASA Langley Research Center. He is a proud member of a team of scientists who develop algorithms for this unique instrument that probes Earth’s atmosphere using pulses of laser light.

While the description doesn’t cover everything I do, being a producer for NASA basically means I make short videos that communicate a message for a particular mission or event. There are many ways to work in the science communication world, but I spend most of my time producing videos. Sometimes I get animators and scientists together to collaborate on a cool new way of looking at the Earth, or I may plan a live, interactive webcast for a special event like Earth Day.

One of the best parts of being a producer at NASA is that I’m rarely bored. New projects with new people crop up all the time, so I get to reinvent myself in small ways. That usually means figuring out something new, whether it’s a computer program or a way to film a shot. I am constantly testing myself and learning and expanding my skill set, trying to improve my camera techniques and animating skills. The better I am at performing different tasks, the more useful I will be as a producer. It’s also just fun to learn new things. Here are a few things I’ve learned—and am still learning—about being a video producer.

Be patient and persistent. Editing takes up most of my time. I always wish I were faster at it. Editing is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. All the pieces are laid out, I have an idea of what it should look like, but it takes so long that, at some point, I’d rather just be watching TV. Much like a jigsaw puzzle, I spend an excruciating amount of time figuring out the framework, making tiny amounts of progress through a disproportionate amount of effort. As long as I continue working on a project, there always comes a point where something clicks. I begin to see a picture forming, which helps me progress faster, generating new ideas. Sometimes I go back and shoot something new and fit that in. Other times I take an entire section out. The whole process can be daunting, depressing, chaotic, and fun all at once. In the end, what once was a blank slate now tells a story.

Accept that good ideas take time. I hate the feeling of not having an idea. There’s nothing more irritating than looking at a big empty timeline in my video editing program. Good ideas take a long time for me. They have to grow from a tiny kernel into something I can actually manipulate on the computer screen. The only way to make that happen is to put something onto the screen and play with it. I’ll often listen to some music and get away from the screen for a little bit, hoping to knock something loose in my head.

Use music to inspire new ideas. I love when I hear a song and can visualize a scene in my head. I try my best to take the tiny idea I get from that experience and produce it in some way. Sometimes a song or music genre gets stuck in my head and creates the tone for a video. Should this story be funny or somber, dry or dramatic, shocking or comforting? What do I hope people will feel when they see this? I obsess about the perfect music to achieve that tone. Rarely do I ever find something “perfect.” Maybe if I had a professional composer on-call that would be easier.

Turn disappointment into learning opportunities. Be prepared to be disappointed sometimes. Learn to live with it. It’s OK to have a finished product and only like a small portion of it. I don’t want to create something I hate entirely and wouldn’t want my name on. If that happens, something has gone very wrong. Maybe I was short on time, or maybe my vision didn’t match the vision of the people I’m working with. It’s important to think ahead to the next project. I can look at something and think, I like this and this, but this part here didn’t work like I thought it would. Or, I really should have gotten a better interview, then I’d have something really great to work with. But I don’t, so I make the best of what I have.

Finally, start building your skill set now if this kind of career sounds remotely interesting. Cameras and editing software—even the low-end versions—are great ways to learn basic techniques. I went to graduate school for filmmaking, but you really learn best when you do it on your own and do it often. I would also recommend watching movies, TV shows, how-to videos, reviews, and more. See what other creative people are doing. Take note what works and what doesn’t. Any career has its share of challenges and disappointments, but it’s a fun to tell science stories for a living.

Ryan Fitzgibbons appears as Asteroid 1999 RQ36 in a promotional video for the Name the Asteroid contest, which is in support of NASA's upcoming OSIRIS-REx mission.

Post by Ryan Fitzgibbons, video producer at Goddard Space Flight Center

My path into science was pretty natural for me. I grew up and went to school in England, where high school was a very different experience than the one my son is having in the US. I started with all the basic sciences and math in (the British equivalent of) 7th grade. I really enjoyed the science classes probably because I had a natural talent for them and I had some pretty wonderful teachers. This turned into my focus for the rest of high school and became my major in college. Although the work level was much more demanding, I still enjoyed chemistry enough to get both a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in the subject.

When I began looking for openings to do postdoctoral research, I found an opportunity to work with a distinguished scientist in the UK to provide basic laboratory measurements for a space shuttle experiment, the Atmospheric Trace Molecule Spectroscopy (ATMOS) project, being developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). ATMOS was intended to study the chemical composition of the Earth’s atmosphere and, in particular, around the ozone layer. I applied for the opportunity and the scientist in charge took me on! Since my postdoc advisor was a very senior scientist and was over-committed to support a number of projects, he decided to ask me attend the ATMOS science meetings at JPL. I was really excited to go and spend time there.

After my first visit to JPL, I realized that the data being taken by this new instrument was waiting to be analyzed. I started to work with a team that had developed application tools for the analysis, but quickly learned that no one was actually using the tools. Over several years I was fortunate to spend more time visiting JPL, working very long hours, but analyzing data to point where I became a local expert with the tools and data. To help focus my work, I learned as quickly as I could why gases such as ozone, methane, and chloroflurocarbons* (CFCs) were important in the chemistry of the atmosphere. This had a big personal pay off: I was offered a job at JPL to which I immediately said “Yes, please!”

For two or three years at JPL, while we waited to fly ATMOS again on the space shuttle, I loved having no professional responsibilities other than to get new scientific results out of the shuttle experiment data. Eventually, my mentor stepped down from his role as supervisor of the experiment and recommended to NASA that I take over.

Those early years at JPL were really productive scientifically for the ATMOS team. The cause of the ozone hole over the south pole was a major popular scientific topic, and related issues on why or how the ozone layer was being eroded was a focus for our research. Looking back, we made many solid contributions. We now know that CFCs were escaping to the atmosphere, and there being broken down by ultraviolet sunlight to form reactive chlorine, which acts as a catalyst for the loss of ozone. It is always rewarding to work on something really cool!

*Chloroflurocarbons are organic compounds that were the by-products of processes involving methane and ethane. They were once used as refrigerants, propellants, and solvents in everyday applications.

Post by Michael Gunson, Global Change & Energy Program Manager at NASA JPL

I remember walking down the beach on a vacation in Florida as it started thunderstorming in the distance. I had just learned in school that you could figure out the distance to the storm by counting the number of seconds between a lightning flash and thunder, and either multiplying or dividing that number by a certain factor. Much to the chagrin of my family, the exact equation* escaped me at the time. It was during that big storm, and many subsequent storms, that I became fascinated by extreme weather and its impacts on the world. I later realized this passion could actually become a career!

I grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota and went to Princeton University for my undergraduate work. All through high school and the beginning of college I thought I wanted to be a math major, mostly because I figured that people who liked math studied that subject. During my freshman year, I took a class on environmental issues and discovered all the environmental issues people with a math and science background work on. Based on my experiences in that class and a memorable conversation with the professor, I decided to pursue an advanced degree in environmental science and natural disasters.

During my graduate work at Columbia University, I focused on methods of utilizing satellite data to decipher and model natural hazards and their impacts on Earth. I was specifically interested in figuring out how we can use satellite data about rainfall, topography, and land cover to approximate where and when disasters may happen around the world. I narrowed in on landslide hazards (often a general term for mudslides, rockfalls, debris flows, etc.). Despite being pretty small events compared to enormous size of hurricanes, landslides can cause massive amounts of damage and result in thousands of fatalities each year. In developing countries, the impacts of landslides are often even more extreme because a combination of factors, including steep slopes, poor building practices, precarious road construction, and lots of rainfall. Together, these factors contribute to frequent landslides with the potential to harm large populations.

I never really wanted to be an astronaut (though I did like the ice cream I tried on a visit to Kennedy Space Center in elementary school) but did like that satellites that orbit way above the Earth’s surface can tell us new and exciting things about our planet. Now at NASA, my research uses this satellite data to estimate where and when rainfall may trigger landslides across the globe. My math and science background has helped me to understand the processes occurring on Earth’s surface, while my research in the mechanisms of natural disasters has helped me better understand and communicate the impact these events have on people. My ultimate research goal is to be able to provide a warning system so people all over the world can understand where and when landslides are likely to happen in their area and be able to respond to protect their communities.

*To figure out the number of miles to a storm, divide the number of seconds between a lightning flash and thunder by 5.

Post by Dalia Kirschbaum
Learn more about Dalia in this video interview

So I’m flying at 1500 feet above a giant crack in the Pine Island Glacier. By “giant” I mean up to 800 feet across, deeper than the Statue of Liberty, and 18 miles long. I’m in a NASA DC-8 aircraft with Operation IceBridge, the first airborne mission to take detailed measurements of such a massive calving event in progress. If this chunk of the Antarctic ice shelf splits off and floats away into the ocean as one big piece, it will be the size of New York City.

A crack spreads across the Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica. Credit: Jefferson Beck, NASA

A close-up of the Pine Island Glacier rift. Credit: Jefferson Beck, NASA

As the video producer assigned to this mission, I’m trying to make the most out of the few moments where the scenery isn’t just impressive, but truly stunning. My stomach is tight with excitement and worry that I’ll miss the best shots. I have one camera set up recording a time-lapse out one window, and I’m holding another camera against another window. I’m bracing myself with a ratty piece of foam against the fuselage and trying to find a clear spot among the window’s many scratches as the plane bounces along. The Crack looms large for a while, then quickly fades from sight and gets lost in the whiteness.

The Antarctic ice shelf as seen from the window of an airplane. Credit: Jefferson Beck, NASA

After we finish our flight lines, we bank out over the razor-sharp edge where the ancient Antarctic ice meets the dark water. We start to gain altitude for the long flight back to Punta Arenas, Chile, a port city on the Strait of Magellan. As we climb, I think about how few people have gotten to see the frozen continent from this perspective. Then I look around at the amazingly talented group of people on board, and think “how did I possibly wind up here?”

Ok, so I didn’t really think that, right at that moment. That would have been a pretty convenient revelation to have, with an Earth Science Week career-oriented blog to write sometime in the future. At that moment I was probably wondering if I got the white balance right on both of my cameras, or thinking about maybe heating up an empanada, or about what questions to ask the scientists on board about what we saw today. But I have had those kinds of thoughts many times while working at NASA, so let’s imagine it was right then.

So, how did I possibly wind up there? Or, for that matter, at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, as part of a group of writers, video producers, animators, web people, and data visualizers that make up NASA’s Earth Science Storytelling Team?

[The idea that we're 'storytellers' might strike you as a strange one for a group of people who write about scientists and hardcore facts, but it really represents what we do. NASA satellites constantly scan our Earth, sending back a steady stream of data about our land, oceans, and atmosphere, and we have to turn those numbers into words and images. Essentially we’re turning them into stories, because one of the best ways to convey information – any information – is through a story. I’ll come back to this idea of truthful storytelling later.]

So you'd think that most people who work at NASA are numerical geniuses who spent their high school years building robots and answering math problems for fun. And we do have people like that. We also have people who could rebuild an engine when they were 14 and people who had their pilot’s license at 17.

But for me, high school was many things and the path was not always clear. High school was cross country and track, the school newspaper, reading lots of science fiction, smudging my way through art classes, dropping an essay-writing class to have double-lunch with my girlfriend, struggling a bit with math, and really enjoying most of my science courses.

My continuing issues with math and, as it turned out, chemistry didn’t stop me from becoming a biology major in college. There I focused on ecology and natural history. After that my plan was to become a biologist, so for a while I ended up in Alaska standing in frozen streams counting wild salmon. I loved being in the field and I loved the natural world, but slowly the idea of being a research scientist began to fade.

Not knowing what to do next, I went back home to Ohio. I couch-surfed for a while before landing a job as a reporter for a small-town newspaper. Then I helped build a local bike trail, did some reporting for radio, and then got involved with non-profit community-building work. For a while, I was a bouncer in a bar one night a week. Finally, I landed in filmmaking. I took some film classes, worked on a couple indie features, and made some little films of my own.

It all kind of looks like a jumbled mess, doesn’t it? It doesn’t make you think, “well, here’s a guy who is destined for NASA.” It’s what career-minded people call “lateral moves,” jumping sideways from one career track to another without much advancement – the kinds of moves that make some parents scratch their heads and start to worry.

But all that experience led me to finally apply to a grad school program in science and nature filmmaking at Montana State University. I got accepted, and later got my job at NASA, because I was able to tell a story – a true story – using the skills I had gained from all those lateral moves. I could write, manage a project, understand scientists, recognize news, work in the field, dig deep and endure adversity [claiming this one from my 10 years running cross country and track], and make a video.

So my take home message is this: If you’re one of those focused people who know exactly what they want to do and head straight for it, fantastic. One day you’ll be flying the plane I’m riding in, designing one of our satellites, or sending us to Mars. And I’ll be grateful for your skills. But if your career path wanders, don’t worry. If you keep learning as you go, one day it will make for a very interesting true story.

This month I’m heading back to Chile, and back to flying at 1500 feet over the Antarctic ice, and maybe even back to the Pine Island Glacier, which finally seems ready to give up its New York City-sized chunk of ice. Wherever we fly, it will be exciting. And difficult, and beautiful, and scientifically valuable. There will be a lot of true stories out there, and I’ll do my best to bring them home.

Jefferson Beck is a video producer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Credit: Jefferson Beck, NASA

Post by Jefferson Beck

Watch the video Jefferson created: Flying through the Rift: An update on the crack in the Pine Island Glacier

In this video blog, Josh Fisher, a climate scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the Water & Carbon Cycles Group, talks about his career path and hobbies.

Post by Josh Fisher

I mostly grew up in Gary, Indiana on the shores of Lake Michigan (a smallish ocean) surrounded by great Pleistocene sand dunes. Meteorologically, we had blizzards, sweltering summers and even tornadoes.

My dad was a sea captain and taught me celestial navigation, shooting the stars and the sun with a sextant. At night he would point out the North Star and the many constellations and tell me about the mythology of each. This was heady stuff and fascinating for a budding geek. For my generation, Sputnik was huge. We became the first space-nut generation. Sputnik and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL**) Explorer 1 gave many of my classmates and me the 'space bug.'

The opportunity for adventure presented itself in an unusual manner. I'd blown out my knee playing basketball and dropped out of college my freshman year and ran away to sea. I hitchhiked to New York and worked for a seaman's union in Brooklyn. Friends of my dad put me to work on a tramp freighter. I went around the world. I spent a week in Bali surfing and diving, then back across the Pacific through two great big typhoons.

Eventually, I went back to school and double-majored in physics and math at Purdue. I also double-minored in American literature and geology. One winter, I saw this book on surfing in Hawaii. Soon I was headed to Hawaii for graduate school. I got up at five in the morning, went surfing, then off to class and studied in the evening. A few years later, I had earned a doctorate in oceanography and meteorology.

Bill Patzert. Credit: NASA

After I graduated, I was off to a position at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California - a fantastic research institute and another surfing mecca.

In the 1970s, the vast oceans and the global atmosphere were poorly sampled. Those years were filled with travel for research to Tahiti, islands in the Pacific, Australia, Indonesia, South America, Southeast Asia and many other places I had dreamed of as a boy. I saw much of the world, had great adventures and gained a deep appreciation about the great forces of nature.

In the early 1980s, oceanography was about to enter the space age. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was flying satellites that were revolutionizing weather forecasting and NASA was planning for a suite of ocean-observing spacecraft.

Remembering the excitement of Sputnik and witnessing the birth of America's new space program, I hung up my sea boots and cast my future and fortune with NASA and JPL.

That gamble has been wildly successful. The TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1 and Jason-2 ocean satellites have been flying for 20 years. These height-measuring observatories have revolutionized oceanography and climate research.

Although I miss hearing the surf and donning the wetsuit every few days, I really enjoy being at JPL. I love to speak with students, civic and environmental groups, and, even, politicians. After speaking all over Southern California for almost three decades, I'm still surprised and delighted with the people I meet.

Today, there are great issues that must be addressed - climate change, our economy, human rights, poverty and many others. The problems the global community is dealing with now - the deficit, war and poverty - will be dwarfed by climate change, sea-level rise, a warming world, and change in agricultural and rainfall patterns.

What happens when you have nearly sixty million people in California and no water? In the old days, the Anasazi just dispersed throughout the Southwest. Now we're 95% urban. So we're definitely not going to put L.A. in a backpack and move to British Columbia. Climate change is the real deal. I want to contribute to the dialogue and, hopefully, a better future.

Yep, still dreaming here at JPL.

Post by William Patzert
Learn more about his research in this bio and this interview

My story
As a young child I didn’t have much interest in science. I simply didn’t understand what science truly is: it is more than a collection of facts to be memorized for exams; there is room for creativity and a feeling of adventure and adrenaline when discovering something new. Over time, I realized conducting science is crucial to the future of the Earth and therefore our own survival.

I learned that not all of science means sitting in a laboratory behind beakers, performing experiments and drawing conclusions from the results. This skewed view is what many students learn at school, where they are forced to memorize the infamous “Scientific Method” and repeat it for tests. In my case, it wasn’t until I reached college that I learned differently. I discovered it was more dynamic -- there isn't just one scientific method.

A way of thinking
The inherent beauty of science hooked me on research. Once I had a taste of it, I couldn’t get enough: I started doing research in evolutionary biology at my university, the University of Northern Iowa. Later I travelled to France and Taiwan through UNI’s study abroad office to conduct research in organic chemistry at L'École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Rennes, and in neuroscience at National Chengchi University in Taipei. I also began reading books and journal articles from many different scientific fields as much as my free time would allow.

Earth Science
My first encounter with Earth Science came from reading the works of Dr. Carl Sagan, an astrophysicist, cosmologist, and science enthusiast,. Sagan is perhaps best known for his TV series Cosmos and book-turned-movie Contact, but he also wrote about other things, like the origin of life, evolution, and the perils of polluting our atmosphere. He talked about chloroflurocarbons (CFCs) and the Montreal Protocol, the international treaty purposed to phase out the use of harmful substances that damage our ozone layer. My interest in atmospheric science was sparked. Like all Earth sciences, atmospheric science is not only intrinsically interesting, but it is significance to the entire human race and impacts legislation.

The Earth system is very dynamic and complex, which makes it tricky to understand. There are many components to it – such as the atmosphere, the biosphere, the hydrosphere and more – and each of these hold their own challenges in studying them.

The NASA Earth Science Division takes on these challenges in their research of the Earth system. While NASA may be better known for its space program among the general public, it is a leading contributor to the study of Earth science and offers unparalleled and exciting opportunities for scientists who study Earth systems.

When I heard about the summer internship with the NASA Student Airborne Research Program (SARP), I applied quickly. My undergraduate university is fairly small, and this internship allowed me a research opportunity I would not otherwise have had.

When I arrived for the internship in June 2012, I had studied basic chemistry but was unfamiliar with atmospheric science. I was nervous initially, but there were interesting papers to read and a series of lectures and great instruction from the scientists brought in to advise us. I walked away from each day of lectures more confident in my knowledge of the atmosphere and in my ability to take on a project that would help fellow scientists and perhaps, eventually, people in general.

The cooperative nature of science was especially apparent during SARP. The interns were a diverse group, specializing in mathematics and physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, and more. We helped one another, strengthening each other's weaknesses and contributing different ways to approach a problem in group discussions.

The students' camaraderie over the summer reflected the way Earth scientists collaborate in the field. Occasionally during lectures, senior scientists who worked together would interrupt their own – or sometimes, each other's – lectures to share a campaign story or to correct their colleagues on the date a story occurred. These scientists know each other and meet often to collect and interpret data.

Earth science is cool, and we're living in a time where being a part of these undertakings is both a lot of fun and urgently needed. What we choose to do with our time and resources in upcoming years could prove pivotal, and it will take some inquiring and dedicated minds to keep us all afloat!

Post by Alex Popinga, an undergraduate student at University of Northern Iowa

My story begins my freshman year in high school when I was making decisions about the next four years of my life. Those four years seemed like an eternity to my fourteen year old self. My approach has always been to go down the path of least resistance. For me, that meant keeping to my strengths, science and math. Those subjects were my solace. No teenager really wants to be exposed as a nerd, yet at the time I could not escape it. I was precisely that: a nerd. So I embraced it, and braced myself for the backlash.

That backlash never really came. Once I decided to embark upon this journey and be proud of my nerdiness, I was not ridiculed because I exuded confidence and acceptance of my chosen path. My peers respected it. Maybe they did not understand my choice, but they respected that I had made a choice. I loaded my schedule with math and science classes: Algebra, Pre-Calculus, Calculus, Biology, Chemistry and Physics.

I come from rural North Carolina, a small town in Franklin County where the schools were not well funded and where opportunities could be scarce at times. Yet, when opportunities did present themselves I made a point to take advantage of them. For me, going to college was an escape from a place where everything always seemed to stay the same. I did not know who I wanted to be, but I knew I could never become that person if I stayed at home. School and success were urgent affairs to me. They had to be. I felt that I had one shot to step onto on the path to the next chapter in my life.

After I graduated high school in 1999, I went to Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Ga. I felt like I had so much to prove, that this little country girl could survive and thrive in the big city or something like that. What really happened was culture shock. I was not prepared for people who thought college was just a fun game. I had too much riding on my success to treat it that cavalierly. My objectives were to keep my scholarship and to graduate. In college, I continued on the path of least resistance again by focusing on science and mathematics.

I began as a chemistry major. After my first year and lots of critical self-examination, I decided that I would rather be a big fish in a small pond, so I changed my major from chemistry to math. The math department was small, but it was filled with professors who were invested in my success.

During the summer of my sophomore year, I began interning with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). That was the first time I saw the practical applications that existed for my science and math background. I started to consider careers beyond teaching.

Interning with NOAA gave me two choices for summer experiences. I knew I could have a challenging, rewarding summer either with the National Weather Service (NWS) or with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). I choose to work with NMFS for 3 years. That decision allowed me to travel to Mississippi, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., and to develop the topic and research that culminated in my master’s thesis in Applied Mathematics.

My work with NOAA directly led to me getting my position with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In the fall of 2003, NASA hosted a job fair at Clark Atlanta University, which I decided to attend. I met with a female engineer from NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) who shared her story about why she chose to work at NASA. She read my résumé, which highlighted my problem solving, data analysis, and statistical background. I was soon offered a job at NASA LaRC.

I am very appreciative of those opportunities that have allowed me to grow and challenge myself since coming to LaRC. I recently completed my Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). There are many women making great strides in this discipline, and I look forward to continuing that tradition over the course of my career.

Atmospheric Science is dynamic yet poignant. My research that I complete is not only scientifically interesting but important for everyone. We all have a stake in air quality and the future of our climate. The better we understand the Earth system now, the better we can make decisions and adapt to changes. I no longer consider myself a big fish in a small pond…I rather think of myself as a fish in a community that can grow and thrive in the ever-changing oceans of life.

Join Erica Alston for a Twitter chat on Thursday, October 18, 2012 from 12noon – 1pm ET. She’ll answer any questions you have about what she does, her background and careers in Earth Science.

Post by Erica Alston

More information:
Twitter Chat with Erica Alston
Daring to Learn the Language of Mathematics (article)

If somebody had told me that 2012 would bring with it a deployment to Greenland, Chile, and possibly Antarctica, I never would have believed them. But here I am reflecting back on my three weeks in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, as I pack for Punta Arenas, Chile. These experiences have been made possible by my new assignment as the project manager of a NASA airborne geophysical project called Operation IceBridge (OIB).

I started full-time work with OIB this past March. What I truly enjoy about this project is the remarkably talented and extensive team I work with. As the project manager, I must coordinate and help lead a vast team of experts spread out across the country. This team includes polar scientists, instrument engineers, educational/outreach teams, logistics teams, data centers, and aircraft offices. I have to utilize good leadership and communications skills to help my integrated team work together smoothly to achieve a common goal and meet all of our science objectives.

Christy Hansen stands in front of an airplane at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. This plane took her to Greenland this past April. Credit: Matt Linkswiler

Twice a year, the OIB team travels to Earth’s polar regions to collect data on the changing ice sheets, glaciers, and sea ice. For the Arctic campaign, we use the P-3B 4-engine turbo-prop airplane at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility. It has been modified to carry nine different science instruments, including laser altimeters, which measure the different heights of the terrain from aircraft, and various types of radar systems that can actually penetrate the thick ice sheets.

A view of sea ice with open leads of water. Credit: Christy Hansen

An image of a glacier’s calving front, where it flows and loses ice to the sea. Credit: Christy Hansen

Just four weeks after I started as project manager, I found myself landing in a small Southwestern Greenlandic town called Kangerlussuaq. There was snow on the runway and everyone was bundled in coats. The majority of the buildings looked like military barracks. Most of the OIB team was already there, and they greeted me at the plane. At the time, I knew only one person, the project scientist, and we had only spoken a few times! What an adventure awaited me!

The plane flies over sea ice. The P-3B propeller can be seen out the window of the plane. Credit: Christy Hansen

Christy Hansen sits on a toolbox while she working on the Operation IceBridge flight. She is surrounded by various scientific instruments. Credit: Christy Hansen

Each day, we flew at 1500 feet, seemingly scraping the surface of the massive Greenland ice sheet. I felt as though I could have touched it with my fingers if I had just stretched out my hand. It was beautiful.

Watching the team work together like a well-oiled machine, for almost 8 hours at a time, was simply awesome. The pilots, the aircraft maintenance team, and the instrument experts, who collect gigabytes and terabytes of data per flight, collect the invaluable data that tells us what is happening at our poles, and how much the ice is changing each year.

My second trip to collect data with the OIB team began last September. For the Antarctic campaign, we use NASA Dryden Flight Research Center’s DC-8 aircraft and operate out of Punta Arenas, Chile. During this Chilean campaign, we will actually fly from Chile, over specific science target regions in Antarctica, and then land back in Chile! That’s an 11-hour round trip flight almost every day!

Christy Hansen hugs the Russell glacier, part of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Credit: Christy Hansen

Isn’t this exciting? If you want to learn more about what I do and Operation IceBridge’s current Antarctic campaign, join my Google+ Hangout on Wednesday, October 17th from 1-2pm EST. I look forward to talking to you from Chile.

Post by Christy Hansen

More information:
Google+ Hangout with Christy Hansen
Career Spotlight: Christy Hansen
Operation IceBridge

On a trip to Antarctica, Thorsten Markus, head of NASA Goddard’s Cryospheric Science Lab, stood on sea ice. The broken up ice floes show the thickness -- or rather, the thinness of the sea ice he stood on... on top of 3 mile-DEEP water. These kinds of field measurements are critical for developing the upcoming ICESat-2 (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2) mission. ICESat-2 will use a laser altimeter to measure changes in the thickness of sea ice, which will help scientists understand the relationship between climate, the changing sea ice cover, and sea level rise.

Interested in learning more about what Thorsten Markus does as a polar scientist? Join him for a Twitter chat on Tuesday, October 16 at 1pm ET, when he will answer all of your questions. More information about the event can be found on the event page.

Earth Explorers -- NASA scientists, engineers, writers, multimedia producers, and others who study our planet -- will be featured in a variety of social media events during Earth Science week. You and your students can have a front row seat to their Google+ Hangouts, Twitter chats, and Reddit Interviews. There will also be a radio interview and a webinar in Spanish.

Now is the time to start planning to ensure that your students do not miss this opportunity. They can participate in the live events, or, if necessary, watch the recordings or read the transcripts afterward.

Before the event:
Use the links found on the event post to learn about the featured Earth explorer. Then, in small groups, have students come up with a list of questions for that person. Together as a class, decide on the two or three most intriguing questions you would like answered by the Earth explorer.

Visit the event information page to learn how you can submit questions during the live event or beforehand. Our Earth explorers will do their best to answer as many questions as possible in the allotted time.

During the event:
Log on and watch as the conversation unfolds. (If your class cannot view the live event, recordings/transcripts will be available by the following day. Links will be provided on event pages.)

After the event:
Encourage students to reflect on the event by answering some of the following questions:
• What questions about Earth is this Earth explorer studying? Why are these questions important?
• What tools and techniques does the explorer use to gather data?
• Does the explorer work alone or with a team? If the work involves a team, what role does each member play in the research?
• How will the information gathered by the explorer affect our future?

There are many ways to create classroom activities around these blog posts. In addition to those you may already plan to use, here are two other suggestions:

• On any day during the week, have students read the blog posts. Working in small groups, ask them to identify two things they learned from those posts. Within their group, have them write a follow-up question to ask one of the Earth explorers and post that question in the comments section on the blog. This exercise encourages higher order thinking and engagement with written materials.

• Have students read the blog posts and either individually or as a group choose one to focus on. Have them brainstorm what other related careers or topics the Earth explorer could have pursued or studied. For example, if an Earth explorer has a degree in Oceanography, what are other Earth science careers they could have? Or, if the Earth explorer studies ocean currents, what other questions about the ocean could they investigate?

If you have other ideas on how to incorporate blog posts into learning activities, please share them in the comment section below.

Activity #1:
Have the students research, discuss and/or role play how a career of one of the Earth explorers featured on the poster or in the blog posts may have contributed to the knowledge – or will contribute to further knowledge – on a Benchmark topic.

For example, Chapter 4, Section 4C/E1 of the AAAS Benchmarks states that by the end of 5th grade a student should know that, “Waves, wind, water, and ice shape and reshape the earth's land surface by eroding rock and soil in some areas and depositing them in other areas, sometimes in seasonal layers.” Ask your students to investigate the answer to the question: How would an atmospheric scientist, computer programmer, chemist, engineer, geologist, meteorologist, and/or oceanographer have contributed to the knowledge represented by this benchmark?

How it aligns:
Because the focus of this question is careers and not the specific science content, it aligns well with Chapter 1, subsection 1C of the AAAS Benchmarks. This section, entitled The Scientific Enterprise, contains the following statement (condensed here):
“Career information can be introduced to acquaint students with science as an occupation in which there is a wide variety of different kinds and levels of work. Teachers should emphasize the diversity to be found in the scientific community: different kinds of people (in terms of race, sex, age, nationality) pursuing different sciences and working in different places (from isolated field sites to labs to offices). Students can learn that some scientists and engineers use huge instruments (e.g., particle accelerators or telescopes), and others use only notebooks and pencils. And most of all, students can begin to realize that doing science involves more than "scientists," and that many different occupations are part of the scientific enterprise…Teachers should continue to seize opportunities for introducing information on science as a diverse line of work. Above all, children in early adolescence need to see science and science-related careers as a real option for themselves personally.”
Note that there are also content Benchmarks directly related to the careers of Earth Explorers. They are found in Chapter 3 – The Nature of Technology, and Chapter 4 – The Physical Setting.

Activity #2:
Investigate and discuss the connection between a current event and a career. Using NASA websites like earthobservatory.nasa.gov and climate.nasa.gov, have students select an Earth science-related article and identify the careers of the people featured in the article. Then have students read an article about a specific Earth explorer, or perhaps a blog post written by an Earth explorer in the same career featured on the Earth Science Week website. Ask students “What role would this career have played in this research or discovery? How did this career contribute? What other careers might have been involved?” Discussion could include such contributions as gathering data, analyzing data, making that data accessible to the public, or even using data (i.e. a forest ranger).

Activity #3:
As a writing assignment, have students respond to the following prompts:
• If you could have your ideal career at NASA, what would you want to do and why?
• If you could job shadow one of these careers at NASA, which would you chose and why?
• Compare and contrast two Earth science careers.
• Design a project on which three of the featured careers would work together.
• You were awarded a large grant to study climate change in your geographic area. You can hire three Earth scientists to work on the grant. From the careers featured on the Earth Science Week website, which three Earth scientists would you hire and why?
Students can use articles or blog posts as research to help support their choices.

How these activities align:
Beyond the obvious alignment to those science standards listed in Activity #1 above, science careers are also a logical conduit for addressing certain Language Arts learning standards. The Earth Explorers careers are most easily integrated with those standards that focus on writing and non-fiction reading.

Have other ideas? Share them in the comments section below.

NASA’s Earth Explorers study all aspects of the Earth system—from climate to oceans to Earth’s surface and more. Articles about Earth Explorers and blog posts written by them can be incorporated into class lessons on particular science topics. To help facilitate that, we have compiled a list (below) of Earth Explorers by subject area.

In addition to articles and blog posts, several explorers will be participating in social media events during Earth Science Week. Those participating have a link to the event details after their name. Information about all Earth Science Week events in English and Spanish can be found on our Events page.

Please bookmark this page and return to it often during Earth Science Week, as it will be updated as new blog posts are added to our blog.

Atmosphere
Erica Alston: article + blog post + event transcript
Brian Kahn: article
Ali Omar: article
Jason Tackett: blog post

Climate
Carmen Boening: article
Josh Fisher: video blog post
Bryan Killett: blog post
Bill Patzert: blog post
Cynthia Rosenweig: article
Josh Willis: event transcript

Earth’s Surface and Interior
Marc Imhoff: article
Chris Justice: article
Dalia Kirschbaum: blog post + profile video
Jeff Masek: article

Ice
Jefferson Beck: blog post
Carmen Boening: article
Christy Hansen: blog post + profile video + event video
Thorsten Markus: blog post + event transcript
Claire Parkinson: article

Oceans
Gene Feldman: article
Bill Patzert: blog post
Jorge Vazquez: profile video
Josh Willis: event transcript

Water and Energy Cycle
Michael Gunson: blog post
Susan Thomas: article

Weather
Gail Jackson: blog post
Brian Kahn: article
Graeme Stephens: article
Janel Thomas: profile video

Find out about their careers, why and how they study the planet, and what their typical days are like. From video interviews to blog posts and more, there will be a variety of multimedia activities that will allow Explorers to tell their stories. Have questions of your own? Participate in live Twitter interviews and Google+ Hangouts held throughout the week, as well as during a radio interview and webinar in Spanish.

On October 18, learn about the many contributions of women at NASA to Earth science as part of Female Geoscientists Day.

The 2012 NASA ESW website will be your one-stop-source for Earth science careers and resources during ESW and beyond. There you will find a collection of articles, information about events, links to blog posts, transcripts of Twitter interviews, and educational products in English and Spanish.

The countdown to Earth Science Week 2012 has begun!

Come back often for classroom tips to enhance your students' ESW experience, explore rich, multimedia resources and learn more about the inspiring Earth Explorers you will meet in October!

Some events to look forward to:

Oct. 10-22
Blogs from the Field

Meet NASA's Earth Explorers through these daily blogs beginning the week before and throughout Earth Science Week.

Oct. 15-19
Scientists Reading in Schools (LARC)

NASA Langley volunteers will visit local school classrooms throughout the week to read the GLOBE Elementary books to students.

Oct. 16
Girl Scouts visit NASA JPL, Pasadena, CA

Girls Scouts from the Greater Los Angeles Council will visit NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a fun-filled day of activities.

Univisión Radio – Doctora Isabel Show (en Español)*
Parents, teachers and students are invited to tune in for an hour-long interview with NASA scientists Erika Podest (NASA JPL) and Miguel Román (NASA GSFC) by Univisión's Doctora Isabel, a psychologist who covers a variety of family-related topics on her three-hour radio show.

Oct. 16-18
Women@NASA Blog Interviews
http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/newui/blog/viewpostlist.jsp?blogname=womenatnasa

To celebrate Female Geoscientists Day, Women@NASA will feature interviews with three remarkable Earth Explorers. Check out each of these interviews to gain insights about the role of women in studying the planet and the unique experience of NASA scientists Temilola Fatoyinbo (NASA GSFC), Michelle Gierach (NASA JPL), and Sarah Crecelius (NASA LARC).

Oct. 17, 1pm ET/12noon CT/11am MT/10am PT
Google+ Hangout with Christy Hansen:
Live from Operation Icebridge – 2012 Antarctic Campaign

Hangout with NASA Goddard's Christy Hansen, live from the October-November 2012 Antarctic Campaign, as she prepares for several 12-hour flights from Chile over Antarctica and back. Hansen is a project manager for Operation IceBridge – NASA's multiyear airborne campaign studying Earth's polar ice in unprecedented detail to better understand processes that connect the polar regions with the global climate system.

Oct. 18
Twitter Interview with Erica Alston*

Erica Alston is a scientist studying air quality at NASA's Langley Research Center and a role model to girls interested in Earth science. She tells young women to believe in themselves and pursue their dreams: "There have been too many female trailblazers in the sciences for you to believe that you cannot be one, too."

• Times TBA