Solar System and Beyond: Exploring New Planets
Thursday 05/24/2018
6:00 pm ET (3:00pm PT)
FREE 1-hour Webinar
Educators in Grades 6-12

The NASA STEM Educator Professional Development Collaborative at Texas State University is providing a 1-hour webinar.

Is there another Earth beyond our solar system? This webinar will answer this question using real NASA data to explore how telescopes, especially the Kepler Space Telescope, searches for planets orbiting stars beyond our sun. The NASA STEM activities presented will investigate how to use Kepler Space Telescope data and Kepler’s 3rd Law to construct graphs and interpret data to determine if a planet beyond our solar system is Earth-like and a candidate to support “life”.


Steve Culivan is the NASA STEM Education Professional Development Collaborative Specialist at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Mr. Culivan develops and provides NASA STEM online and face-to-face professional development programs for in-service, pre-service and informal educators. Mr. Culivan was the Principal Investigator for two International Space Station (ISS) in-flight education demonstrations. He additionally developed and co-developed several NASA curriculum products. Prior to his current twenty-eight year career with NASA Education, Mr. Culivan taught middle school Earth and Space Science, life science, English, art and coached several sports. He holds a current Louisiana teaching certificate in science and English. Mr. Culivan received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Education from Louisiana Tech University and a Masters of Science degree in Education from Oklahoma State University.