The Path To Planet B Begins In Our Classrooms

The invention that allows humans to live on other planets or leverages the technologies of space exploration to improve health care or agriculture here at home may already live in the mind of a young person like Sam Pascal. Sam, a young Black man, recalled through the unCommission how his high-school classes channeled his curiosity about space into a career:

“I had a passion for Sir Isaac Newton,” Sam said. Everyone else hated math, but Sam decided he was going to throw himself into and excel in it. “I started having this passion for space exploration. I learned a lot about outer space, about the planets and orbits and the solar system as a whole.” It was then that Sam decided that he would become an aeronautical engineer.

Unfortunately, too many bright young people like Sam, who dream of one day catapulting toward the stars, don’t even get the chance to try: their high schools don’t offer the prerequisite math and science courses, or teaching shortages in STEM mean that, even if the course is offered, there is no one qualified to teach it. Particularly for students Black, Latinx, and Indigenous backgrounds, who often lack teachers who look like them or believe they belong in STEM and can succeed there, the need for a meaningful connection to STEM cannot be overstated.

This week, the United Nations commemorates World Space Week with more than 6,000 Space Week events across 96 nations, getting young people excited about STEM classes and careers. Vice President Kamala Harris championed efforts across sectors here in the United States, including bountiful free hands-on, minds-on resources for teachers to engage students about outer space and connect it to the math and science they’re already learning — during Space Week or anytime throughout the year.

Young kids can color this downloadable coloring book from the American Geophysical Union. Kids of all ages can try this and other simulations about gravity and orbits from PhET at the University of Colorado, Boulder. English Language Learners can connect to the galaxy with these NASA-inspired materials created by the Explora Science Center & Children’s Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Budding astrophysicists can journey back in time through this story map of the James Webb telescope created by STEM Is My Future.

The University of Texas in Dallas developed a comic book series that begins with Cindi in Space, an android spacegirl with two space dogs. And older kids grappling with the ethics of privatized space travel can engage with peers around the country through this video and discussion series designed by KQED.

Relevant, joyful, rigorous opportunities and materials like these are key. Research has shown that everyone benefits from them, particularly students, including girls and Black, Latinx, and Native American young people, who remain underrepresented in STEM. World Space Week inspires the teachers and students, like Sam, who have the potential to change our galaxy for the better, one planet at a time. As Ray Bradbury wrote, “It is good to renew one’s wonder . . . Space travel has again made children of us all.”