HOUSTON — Since 1992, Space Center Houston has been connecting the community with space.
“We are a dynamic Science and Space Exploration learning center,” Space Center Houston Vice President of Education Research and Collections Daniel Newmyer said. “The education role is important because that's how we work and interact with the community, particularly schools."
This week, schools are top of mind for Space Center Houston as they prepare something special for students across the greater Houston Area.
“We are packing our eclipse in a box,” Newmyer said.
The upcoming eclipse is a rare event that can be a great opportunity for young people to learn about science. Space Center Houston said it wants to make sure students have a fun and memorable experience on eclipse day.
All week they’ve been preparing 5,000 eclipse boxes.
“You’ve got your glasses to be able to celebrate safely and then as you go through this guide, there's a material list you need to be able to do the activities,” said Keesha Bullock with Space Center Houston. “So, you're going to learn about things like how UV rays work through using a pipe cleaner and a set of beads.”
Houston Space Center hopes students will be able to learn something new with all the activities provided inside of the box.
“The teachers can then work with the students to demonstrate what is exactly happening,” said Newmyer. “And then the final piece is really what can we learn from the eclipse? So, what is the science that can come from it.”
More importantly, they want to make sure teachers have what they need.
“We’ve done a lot of work with listening to teachers, listening to classrooms and what they need and what they want,” said Newmyer. So, this is a way that we can just supplement that day. We can give them some tools; we can give them all the resources they need so they don't have to go out and hunt it down.”
All of the activities inside the box were created by NASA experts.
“A key component of what we do is we want authentic, real stem experiences. So, the best way to do that is to make sure what we're doing is real,” said Newmyer.
In the end, they just hope to bring students closer to space and maybe inspire the next generation of space explorers.
“We want to give students that opportunity to experiment, to do real science in the moment so that, you know, maybe they see an opportunity for themselves as they go forward,” said Newmyer.