Council on Women and Girls
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Girls in Outer Space

Posted by Rebecca Spyke Keiser on September 09, 2010 at 07:11 PM EDT

NASA is collaborating with the Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now (FFAWN) and the NASA Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Aerospace Academy (SEMAA) to engage middle schools in math and science learning. The program began with a pilot on the job-training for over 30 students from FFAWN’s all girl high school in the Bronx, New York. This training program trained students to become student aids.

The students in the job-training program worked with four NASA SEMAA teachers to learn how to deliver hands-on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) activities to 100 middle school students. The NASA material included experiments to illustrate the effects of gravity and Newton’s laws on the forces affecting flight; explore chemistry and properties of solids, liquids and gases; and assess living and working in space.  Astronaut Leland Melvin, one of the organizers of the FFAWN collaboration, said, “Working with FFAWN is a rare opportunity to help spread the STEM message into communities not always readily accessible to us.”

Visit NASA’s website at www.nasa.gov/soi/  to learn more about NASA's Summer of Innovation.
 

Rebecca Spyke Keiser is Executive Officer to the Deputy Administrator at NASA and serves as a member of the White House Council on Women and Girls

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