National STEM Day - School Edition

Space Center Houston is hosting National STEM Day - School Edition on Friday, November 6, from 10 AM to 1 PM. It's part of the larger National STEM Day, which is celebrated every year on November 8 to encourage kids to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, arts and math. This school edition brings that celebration to students with a morning full of hands-on activities.

The lineup of activities is built around doing rather than just watching. There's a planetarium show, a Design A Mission Patch station, a virtual reality experience of the International Space Station, and a Sphero Maze Runner challenge. You'll also find DNA extraction and Rovers on the Moon. If you're bringing a school group, you'll need to complete the Field Trip Order Form before registering for any of these activities. And the day doesn't have to end there—students can keep going with tram tours over to NASA's Johnson Space Center.

There are some heavy hitters on the program, too. Karly Liebendorfer, a 2023 Astronaut Scholar and third-year Ph.D. candidate in Bioengineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is one of the STEM Day presenters; she's currently training as an analog astronaut for the Asclepios VII mission in Switzerland. There will be book-signing sessions with NASA alumni, and astronaut Jim Wetherbee—the only astronaut to have commanded five Space Shuttle missions—will give a presentation. It's a rare chance for students to hear from people who've actually been up there.

For context, the broader National STEM Day celebration continues through the weekend. On Sunday, November 8, students worked in teams to engineer a space helmet prototype and test it using a Brain Impact Simulator, exploring how NFL and NASA engineers solve similar problems to protect the human brain from dangerous forces. The school edition on the 6th is included in general admission, and it runs from 10 AM to 1 PM.