#space-education

#space-education

All seven on board were killed when Challenger broke apart following liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986. At the Kennedy Space Center memorial ceremony, Challenger pilot Michael Smith's daughter, Alison Smith Balch, said through tears that her life forever changed that frigid morning, as did many other lives. "In that sense," she told the hundreds of mourners, "we are all part of this story."

Sixth-graders at Columbia Middle School were given a portal into space exploration Oct. 3 by Dr. Pascal Lee, a planetary scientist with the SETI Institute, the Mars Institute and NASA Ames Research Center. Lee spoke to students about his Mars research and what it would take to travel to the red planet, including how the science and math they're learning could be applied. The school visit was made possible through a grant awarded by the Ames Contractor Council.

A south London school is on track to become the first all-girls school in the world to send a satellite into space. The independent Croydon High School in south London, has designed and built a working satellite which they aim to launch into low-Earth orbit in the next couple of years. They hope the plan, called Mission Pegasus, will inspire girls to take on science, technology, engineering and maths subjects, known as STEM, where females are still under-represented.