WALDORF — Charles County middle schoolers will spend the week before Thanksgiving packing supplies for a pretend trip to the moon, coding robots and hearing from a man who has flown the space shuttle three times.
The Space Foundation and Charles County Public Schools are bringing the foundation’s Space in the Community program back to the county Nov. 16-20, according to a joint release from the school system. Former NASA astronaut Mark Polansky will visit middle schools across the district with foundation educators, then speak to the public at a Community Night on Friday, Nov. 20, at the James E. Richmond Science Center in Waldorf.
It is the program’s second stop in Charles this calendar year, and it comes as the partnership between the Colorado-based nonprofit and the county’s 27,904-student school system nears its 20th anniversary. The visits are designed to connect classroom science and math to careers in a space industry that is hiring.
Who is coming
Polansky flew three shuttle missions: he was pilot of STS-98 and commander of STS-116 and STS-127, logging more than 993 hours in space. Before NASA selected him in 1992, he was an Air Force pilot and test pilot with more than 5,000 flight hours in more than 30 aircraft types. At NASA he also trained astronaut crews and supported shuttle launches and landings, the release said.
Heidi Vasiloff, senior director of the Space Foundation Discovery Center, said the goal is to help students see how their classwork ties to the world and beyond it, and to show them there is a place for everyone in space exploration.
What students will do
The school visits are built around NASA’s Artemis lunar program. In teams, students will decide which supplies are essential for a moon mission and pack them, an exercise in prioritizing and problem-solving. They will also program Sphero indi robots, small rolling robots used to teach beginning coding.
Foundation staff will introduce the National Space Sustainability Competition, which asks teams of sixth through eighth graders to design ways to live sustainably in orbit. This year’s theme is sustainable energy.
High school students get a separate session. From 8:15 to 11 a.m. on Nov. 20, the foundation will host a peer mentoring event at the Richmond Science Center where students will meet industry professionals and talk through career paths in the space sector.
The school system did not say which middle schools are on the schedule or how many students will take part.
Community Night is open to the public
The week ends with Community Night from 6 to 8 p.m. Nov. 20 at the Richmond Science Center, on the St. Charles High School campus in Waldorf. The release promises hands-on STEM activities, demonstrations and a presentation by Polansky, followed by a chance to meet him.
The science center houses a 184-seat digital dome planetarium, a 6-foot NOAA Science on a Sphere globe and a Discovery Lab, according to the center. The release did not mention admission fees or registration; when the same program held a Community Night there in March, the family activities were free.
Twice in one year, 20 years in
The Space Foundation last brought Space in the Community to Waldorf March 23-27, with retired astronaut Kathryn Thornton, a veteran of four shuttle flights, visiting elementary, middle and high schools, according to the foundation. That visit included a physics workshop for teachers, a peer mentoring morning at St. Charles High and a Community Night with straw rockets, crater experiments and planetarium shows.
The partnership itself dates to 2007. Superintendent Maria Navarro said it has produced professional development sessions for hundreds of Charles County teachers in science, technology, engineering and math, and that teachers bring that training back to their classrooms. She said this fall’s visit lets the school system expand STEM education further into the community.
That teacher training reaches far more students than any single week of school visits. Earlier Space Foundation sessions in Charles focused on lessons teachers could reuse, including early-childhood STEM activities, according to a 2011 foundation report.
The Richmond Science Center has become the school system’s public front door for space and astronomy, hosting programs such as its holiday dome shows that draw families from across the county.
Media and others with questions about the school visits, mentoring event or Community Night can contact Shelley Mackey, the school system’s director of communications, at 301-934-7220.
