Now through December, a variety of printable lesson plans and classroom activities developed by NIA are available to students and teachers at www.masterthescience.org.   For instance, a lesson plan might teach elementary school students how to tell time using a sundial, or middle school students about how the universe is expanding. An activity component is also built in where teacher and student questions can be submitted and answered by science experts.

“We are thrilled to offer educators a resource program that utilizes popular characters to enhance the learning experience for students in fields of study that will only grow more crucial as we move forward in the 21st century,” says Robert Lindberg, NIA president and executive director.

“We’re honored to have our characters take what sometimes may seem like dry topics and help make them come alive for students,” says George Harrison, Nintendo of America’s senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. “The collaboration provides an opportunity for children to learn 21st century science using 21st century tools with characters they’re familiar with.”

“We know through our Nortel LearniT initiatives that technology integration in the classroom makes learning both exciting and engaging,” says Greg Farmer, vice president of Nortel government and community relations. “As an organization that believes technology can enable opportunity, we are proud to be associated with this project.”

Pokémon is no stranger to in-school education. Teachers and students can also visit Pokémon Learning League (www.PokemonLearningLeague.com) to access its award-winning interactive online lessons in math, science, language arts and life skills.

For more information about the “Master the Science…Master the Game” in-school program, visit the website at www.masterthescience.org.

About NIA: NIA is a non-profit research and graduate education institute headquartered in Hampton, Va.  It was formed in 2002 by a consortium of research universities to ensure a national capability to support NASA’s mission by expanding collaboration with academia and leveraging expertise inside and outside NASA.  NIA performs research in a broad range of disciplines including space exploration, systems engineering, nanoscale materials science, flight systems, aerodynamics, air traffic management, aviation safety, planetary and space science, and global climate change.  The institute’s graduate program offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in the fields of engineering and science through its university partners:  Georgia Tech, Hampton University, North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina State University, the University of Maryland, the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, Old Dominion University, and the College of William & Mary. 

More information about NIA is available at http://www.nianet.org. 

About Nortel: Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that make the promise of Business Made Simple a reality for its customers. Their next-generation technologies, for both service providers and enterprise networks, support multimedia and operation-critical applications. Nortel’s technologies are designed to help eliminate today’s barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people to the information they need, when they need it. Nortel operates in more than 150 countries around the world.  Nortel LearniT (www.NortelLearniT.org) is a global community relations initiative of Nortel focused on building the capacity in others to access and integrate the use of technology for success in the 21st century.

More information about Nortel is available at http://www.nortel.com.

About Nintendo: The worldwide innovator in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Wii™, Nintendo DS™, Game Boy® Advance and Nintendo GameCube™ systems. Since 1983, Nintendo has sold nearly 2.4 billion video games and more than 420 million hardware units globally, and has created industry icons like Mario™, Donkey Kong®, Metroid®, Zelda™ and Pokémon®. A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wa., serves as headquarters for Nintendo’s operations in the Western Hemisphere.

More information about Nintendo is available at http://www.nintendo.com.