Illinois Space Day is this Saturday!
T-minus 4 days! The Illinois Space Society’s flagship educational outreach event, Illinois Space Day (ISD), is back and better than ever! With over 200 students registered, ISD will provide an accessible and enriching STEM experience to the Champaign-Urbana community and beyond.
Per our educational outreach director, Komol Patel, “At ISS Educational Outreach, we fundamentally believe that education should be as accessible as possible, and we're beyond excited to present our first in-person ISD since 2019! ISD will be hosting 200+ K-8 students for a space journey to Moon, Mars, and back, where students will experience the beauty of space exploration and learn about the efforts to understand this universe we live in. As anyone on the ISD team will confirm, this is one of the most fulfilling days of the year where we are able to feel the magic of inspiring the next generation to reach for the stars, and we can't wait to see you there!”
In the past, exhibits have included activities ranging from creating your own moon craters to hybrid rocket engine demonstrations (which will be making a grand return this year)! This year, the Educational Outreach team has been hard at work (2500+ hours to be exact) in creating interactive engineering challenges and scientific demonstrations, including but not limited to rover design, commercial spaceflight, hydroponics, spacesuits, and more! It should come as no surprise that our theme for ISD this year is: To the Moon, Mars, and Back!
If you’ve been following our Instagram, you may remember our keynote speaker: Julie N. Strickland! Julie currently works as a project engineer for Collins Aerospace. She works on the Exploration Extravehicular Activities Services (xEVAs) designing spacesuits for NASA’s ARTEMIS program! In addition to this project, Julie is also very active in Educational Outreach. She serves as the lead of Outreach and the Intern Program at Collins' Houston Spaceport site while also being on the board of directors of High-Tech High Heels, a non-profit that donates funding to STEM events with an emphasis on young ladies and under-served communities. We can’t wait for everyone to meet her!
Last but not least, we’re excited to announce that the students attending ISD will have the unique opportunity to experience an interactive virtual tour from Johnson Space Center showcasing special technology in NASA’s Artemis I mission! Hosted on Kahoot, this tour will give an inside look at the technology aboard the Orion spacecraft and ask thought-provoking questions regarding the Artemis program. The winners of the Kahoot will head home with Amazon gift cards! A special thank you to our partners at Amazon (Amazon Future Engineer) for helping make this possible!
For more information, please see our ISD webpage!