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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A Kansas City-area teacher has turned a lifelong interest in math and science into an appointment as a NASA educator-ambassador.
David Beier, a science teacher in suburban Lee's Summit, applied in March to be one of NASA's teachers in space.
Beier, 43, was among 5,000 applicants. When NASA cut the list to 100 candidates, Beier remained in the running.
But during the health evaluation, he told NASA officials about a head injury he had suffered in high school and was eliminated from the program.
"It is a bummer that he didn't get to be a teacher in space," said Sarah Silva, program manager for education and public outreach for NASA's Educator Ambassador Program at Sonoma College in California.
"He is just a real go-getter and so interested in the NASA program. Just the kind of knowledgeable enthusiast we look for."
Instead, Beier has landed the position as a NASA educator-ambassador.
He is the only Missouri teacher working with NASA's Swift Mission as an educator-ambassador. There are 24 such ambassadors in 18 states and one in British Columbia.
Another Swift ambassador, Michael Ford, teaches high school in Holton, Kan. Several Missouri and Kansas teachers are NASA volunteers and have been trained online to share information about space exploration projects within their communities.
Even before NASA gave him the title with pay, Beier had traveled the country lecturing teachers on how to bring the wonders of outer space into their classrooms.
"Now NASA pays me to do what I love," Beier said.
Beier grew up in Kansas City when space exploration was just taking off, and he was fascinated by the possibility that there might be life beyond the third rock.
"I was a stargazer," Beier said.
The Rockhurst College graduate combined his love for math and science with everything he could learn about the cosmos and became a science teacher
In 1982 he began teaching in Kansas City schools. For the last seven years he has taught sixth grade in the Lee's Summit district. And a few nights a week at Rockhurst University, he instructs teachers on how to teach physics to children.
"I teach about how the universe is just an extension of the earth," Beier said. "All that we can learn on earth can be applied in the universe."
For now Beier will continue teaching sixth-grade science at Hawthorn Hill Elementary School. He will occasionally travel for NASA, presenting workshops at schools around the country.
"I'm still so involved with NASA and teaching about space, that not actually going, truly, is not the end of the world," he said.
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