STEM Engagement at NASA – Page 7

Artemis Generation Students Inspired During NASA STEM Event

March 6, 2024 NeRD

Pascagoula (Mississippi) High School students stand in front of the Thad Cochran Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Feb. 22 during a Next Gen STEM Explore Stennis event focused on computer science and how it impacts propulsion test work onsite. NASA/Danny Nowlin Hancock County (Mississippi) Career Technical Center students stand in front of the Thad Cochran Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Feb. 22 during a Next Gen STEM Explore Stennis event focused on computer science and how it impacts propulsion test work onsite. NASA/Danny Nowlin…

NASA Grants to Engage Students in Quiet Supersonic Community Overflight

February 27, 2024 NeRD

NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft is dramatically lit for a “glamour shot,” captured before its Jan. 12, 2024, rollout at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale where the airplane was constructed. Credit: Lockheed Martin / Michael Jackson NASA has issued new grants to five universities to help develop education plans for the community overflight phase of the agency’s Quesst mission, which aims to demonstrate the possibility of supersonic flight without the typical loud sonic booms. The new grants, from NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, will provide each university…

Math, Mentorship, Motherhood: Behind the Scenes with NASA Engineers

February 22, 2024 NeRD

Engineering is a huge field with endless applications. From aerospace to ergonomics, engineers play an important role in designing, building, and testing technologies all around us. We asked three engineers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley to share their experiences, from early challenges they faced in their careers to the day-to-day of being a working engineer. Give us a look behind the curtain – what is it like being an engineer at NASA? In her early days at NASA, Diana Acosta visited her aeronautics research and development…

University High School Wins Regional Science Bowl at NASA’s JPL

February 5, 2024 NeRD

The 2024 National Science Bowl regional competition hosted by JPL included 21 schools, with this team from Irvine’s University High School taking first place. From left, coach David Knight, Feodor Yevtushenko, Yufei Chen, Nathan Ouyang, Wendy Cao, and Julianne Wu. NASA/JPL-Caltech After months of preparation, more than 100 students competed at the fast-paced annual academic competition hosted by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For the second year in a row, a team from Irvine’s University High School claimed victory at a regional competition of the National Science Bowl, hosted Saturday, Feb.…

University High Wins L.A. Ocean Sciences Bowl at NASA’s JPL

January 22, 2024 NeRD

2 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) The team from University High School in Irvine, California, proved victorious in the 2024 Los Angeles regional Ocean Sciences Bowl tournament at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. From left: senior Julianne Wu, team captain and senior Maia Kopylova, sophomore Angelina Yan, sophomore Matthew Feng, senior Claudia Kahana, and team coach Ruby-Ann Lopez. NASA/JPL-Caltech The annual competition aims to help students expand their ocean-related knowledge outside the classroom and to become environmental stewards. University High School of Irvine, California, emerged victorious…

Boston Students to Hear from NASA Astronaut Aboard Space Station

January 19, 2024 NeRD

NASA astronaut and Expedition 70 Flight Engineer Loral O’Hara scrubs spacesuit cooling loops in preparation for a round of spacewalks. NASA Students, staff, and researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and two local public schools in Boston will have an opportunity next week to hear from NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara aboard the International Space Station. The Earth-to-space call will air live at 9:55 a.m. EST Tuesday, Jan. 23, on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social…

Foggy Fun with STEM

January 3, 2024 NeRD

NASA / Keegan Barber On March 30, 2023, NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Jessica Watkins, and Robert Hines took part in STEM demonstrations with local students in Washington. Lindgren, Hines, and Watkins spent 170 days in space as part of Expeditions 67 and 68 aboard the International Space Station. While aboard, the crew studied ways to reverse the aging of immune cells, how wounds heal in microgravity, and cardiovascular health. They also participated in spacewalks, tested new technology to diagnose medical conditions, explored the development of new construction materials in space,…

Ham Radio in Space: Engaging with Students Worldwide for 40 Years

November 29, 2023 NeRD

In May 2018, a student at Mill Springs Academy in Alpharetta, Georgia, Andrew Maichle, talked to NASA astronaut Scott Tingle on the International Space Station via amateur or ham radio. The experience profoundly affected Maichle, who went on to study electrical engineering at Clemson University in South Carolina. “It was so cool to see in real time the utmost levels of what people in science are able to accomplish, and to talk to and interact with someone at that level,” Maichle recalls. “The space station is an incredible work of…

Aero Engineer Brings NASA into Hawaii’s Classrooms

November 28, 2023 NeRD

On the left, NASA Ames engineer Evan Kawamura on his first day of sixth grade with teacher Kristen Stoker of Hanalani Schools. On the right, Kawamura reunited with Mrs. Stoker when speaking to her students about his work at NASA. The field of aerial vehicle autonomy focuses on self-reliance, building the flight equivalent of puppets without puppeteers. Behind the scenes, however, is a rich network of people and systems that work together to develop frameworks, test new technologies, and inspire a pipeline of engineers to create the breakthroughs of the…

Student innovators invited to develop BIG ideas for lunar inflatables

October 17, 2023 NeRD

With its “Inflatable Systems for Lunar Operations” theme, NASA’s 2024 Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-Changing (BIG) Idea Challenge invites student innovators to build and demonstrate how their concepts can benefit future missions to the Moon and beyond. Inflatable systems could greatly reduce the mass and stowed volume of science and exploration payloads, which is critical for lowering delivery costs to deep space destinations. As the first step in the next era of human space exploration, NASA’s Artemis program brings together commercial, international, and academic partners to explore the Moon for the…