NASA opens teaching center in Sioux City

The agency that put a man on the moon is putting a teacher resource center in northwestern Iowa. NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, holds the grand opening of the facility today in Sioux City to help teachers psych up their students about technology.Alicia Beam is a spokeswoman for the education department of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The new Iowa facility is called the NASA Educator Resource Center. She says it will serve teachers from all across Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota.Beam says the center is designed to provide Iowa teachers access to NASA expertise and educational materials, from lesson plans to videotapes. She says they want to encourage children to enter science and engineering fields.This is the sixth center of its kind in the nation. Others are located in: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Tennessee. On average, each of the other facilities serves up to ten thousand people a year and delivers some 12-thousand publications and other educational items.