Current Events

  • Kansas Legislator Proposes Bill to Outlaw Sustainability Education
    A bill has been introduced in the Kansas legislature this week that would prohibit the promotion of ...Read more

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    Kansas Legislator Proposes Bill to Outlaw Sustainability Education

    A bill has been introduced in the Kansas legislature this week that would prohibit the promotion of sustainability. Here is a link to the one-page bill: http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/hb2366_00_0000.pdf. See report on Bloomberg News.
  • Earth's Center Is 1,000 Degrees Hotter Than Previously Thought, Synchrotron X-Ray Experiment Shows
    Scientists have determined the temperature near the Earth’s center to be 6000 degrees Celsius, 1000 ...Read more

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    Earth's Center Is 1,000 Degrees Hotter Than Previously Thought, Synchrotron X-Ray Experiment Shows

    Scientists have determined the temperature near the Earth’s center to be 6000 degrees Celsius, 1000 degrees hotter than in a previous experiment run 20 years ago. These measurements confirm geophysical models that the temperature difference between the solid core and the mantle above, must be at least 1500 degrees to explain why the Earth has a magnetic field. For more information about this study, see the press release from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility.
  • Ocean Volcanic Rocks Contain Samples of Recycled Crust
    Scientists have long believed that lava erupted from certain oceanic volcanoes contains materials fr...Read more

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    Ocean Volcanic Rocks Contain Samples of Recycled Crust

    Scientists have long believed that lava erupted from certain oceanic volcanoes contains materials from the early Earth’s crust. But decisive evidence for this phenomenon has proven elusive. New research from a team including Carnegie’s Erik Hauri demonstrates that oceanic volcanic rocks contain samples of recycled crust dating back to the Archean era 2.5 billion years ago. Their work is published in Nature. Oceanic crust sinks into the Earth’s mantle at so-called subduction zones, where two plates come together. Much of what happens to the crust during this journey is unknown. Model-dependent studies for how long subducted material can exist in the mantle are uncertain and evidence of very old crust returning to Earth’s surface via upwellings of magma has not been found until now. For more information about these results, see the press release from the Carnegie Institution.
This picture shows the two different tails of a comet - the dust tail and the ion tail.
Click on image for full size
JPL

Sponsorship

Set up a Sponsorship

Our sponsors in federal agencies have been generous over the past 15 years, providing over $7 million dollars towards this effort over this period. Although this sponsorship continues, our ability to respond to our users, maintain and expand our content, and provide training and resources to educators is limited by our growing audience and funding support. We are committed to achieving significant co-sponsorship of Windows to the Universe from our users and other generous individuals and institutions, to help us better serve our users.

Your generous contributions to the Windows to the Universe project will be used exclusively to these purposes developing new content and activities, maintaining the content on the website, translating content into Spanish, responding to more of your comments and questions, and supporting training and the development of new resources for educators and students using the website for science education and literacy. Because the National Earth Science Teachers Association is a non-profit research organization, your contributions to the Windows to the Universe project are tax deductible.

If you share our commitment to integrated, interdisciplinary science education for the public, students, and educators, please consider a contribution to help support the Windows to the Universe project.

What level of sponsorship to provide? Any contribution that you can make will be gratefully received and acknowledged by the project office. But to give you an idea of our overall funding needs, please see the table below:

  • Each three level page on the website costs about $350 to create.
  • Translation of each page into Spanish costs about $40.
  • Creation of a new interactive (such as our new Rosetta animation) costs about ~$7500.
  • Our annual professional development program for teachers, reaching thousands of teachers annually and providing training to ~800 teachers per year, costs about $78,000 per year, including travel and materials distributed to teachers.
  • Development of a new section of the website costs from $10,000 to $100,000 or more, depending on the scope and complexity of the section being developed.

If every user of the website provided $1.00 per year, we would have more than enough support for the project, allowing us to rapidly expand the development and services we offer our users. Of course, not everyone will find it possible to become a co-sponsor. If one in one hundred users provided $10.00 per year in support, we would nearly match our total federal support, allowing us to nearly double the level of development and services we provide our users. Your generous contributions, no matter what level, will be gratefully appreciated and acknowledged by the project, both in writing, as well as on our sponsorship page. In addition, we offer sponsors the opportunity to indicate which of our efforts they would like their contribution dedicated to: content development, Spanish translation, or professional development for educators. To become a sponsor, click here.

Last modified February 24, 2004 by Roberta Johnson.

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Science, Evolution, and Creationism

How did life evolve on Earth? The answer to this question can help us understand our past and prepare for our future. Although evolution provides credible and reliable answers, polls show that many people turn away from science, seeking other explanations with which they are more comfortable....more

Sponsorship

Set up a Sponsorship Our sponsors in federal agencies have been generous over the past 15 years, providing over $7 million dollars towards this effort over this period. Although this sponsorship continues,...more

Corporate and Foundation Sponsorship of Windows to the Universe

If your company or foundation is interested in supporting science education for K-12 students, helping to provide quality resources for teachers, and improving science literacy in our country and around...more

Current Agency and Collaborative Sponsors of Windows to the Universe

Windows to the Universe has been sponsored by numerous agencies and institutions since its inception in 1995. NASA provided the lion-share of support for the project for the first decade of its existence....more

Shop Windows to the Universe

Earth Science Rocks! Select one of our four cool NESTA t-shirts from our online store, and express your love of Earth and space science!

Windows to the Universe, a project of the National Earth Science Teachers Association, is sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation and NASA, our Founding Partners (the American Geophysical Union and American Geosciences Institute) as well as through Institutional, Contributing, and Affiliate Partners, individual memberships and generous donors. Thank you for your support! NASA AGU AGI NSF