Essay Contest Winners To Visit Johnson Space Center
NASA’s Summer of Innovation is partnering with the Texas 4-H Youth Development Program and the Texas A&M University Department of Geology and Geophysics to send Texas student essay winners to Johnson Space Center on Wednesday (Oct. 8) for 4-H National Youth Science Day (NYSD) 2014.
Thirty Texas students were selected as winners from the Texas 4-H essay contest to visit Johnson. Students answered questions about aerospace exploration, rocketry and NASA’s new deep space exploration spacecraft, Orion, which is set to make its first test flight in December. The 4.5-hour uncrewed flight will take Orion 3,600 miles above Earth – farther than any spacecraft built for humans has been in more than 40 years.
During the visit, the students and 4-H representatives will have the opportunity to meet with NASA scientists and engineers, take guided tours of the center, as well as build their own “Rockets to the Rescue” rocket with NASA Education Specialists, then launch them with the NASA Houston Rocket Club.
Thousands of young people across the country will participate in NYSD Wednesday and engage in an educational and interactive learning experience by completing the 2014 science project. The national 4-H NYSD event will take place in Washington, D.C.
Summer of Innovation leverages the expertise and reach of NASA’s 10 field centers, national academic and industry partners and smaller, non-traditional collaborators to engage and challenge middle school students across the United States in scientific discovery and space exploration through unique, NASA-related science, technology, engineering and mathematics opportunities.
Texas A&M’s Department of Geology and Geophysics, part of the College of Geosciences, administers a $17 million NASA grant to bring STEM education to public school children throughout the Southwest.
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For more information on Orion, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/orion
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Media contact: Ashlé Harris, Johnson Space Center, Houston.
