Sally Ride EarthKAM lets middle-school kids take photos of the world from the ISS

The Sally Ride EarthKAM program

is a NASA educational outreach program that enables students, teachers, and the public to learn about Earth from the unique perspective of space.

[It allows] middle school students around the world request images of specific locations on Earth.

Check out the gallery of EarthKAM images taken from the International Space Station.

The 55th round of EarthKAM imaging starts today:

earthcam_mission 54

Yesterday the crew on the ISS set up the EarthKAM for taking images: ISS Daily Summary Report – 11/07/2016 | ISS On-Orbit Status Report:

Sally Ride Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle Schools (EarthKAM):
The crew configured the camera, laptop and associated Sally Ride EarthKAM software at the Node 2 Nadir hatch window. Once configured, the EarthKAM team, in association with middle school students around the world, selected image targets which will be downlinked and used in the study of physics, computers, geography, math, earth science, biology, art, history, and cultural studies.

The objective of Sally Ride EarthKAM is to integrate Earth images with inquiry-based learning to enhance curricula in support of national and state education standards; to provide students and educators the opportunity to participate in a space mission and to develop teamwork, communication, and problem solving skills; to engage teams of students, educators, and researchers in collaborative investigations using remotely-sensed data; and to incorporate the active use of Web-based tools and resources in support of the learning process.

In this video, Tom Marshburn shows how the EarthKAM is set up on the ISS:

Leesa Hubbard is a school teacher in Tennesseee and here she talks about using the EarthKAM and other space resources in her science lessons: