High School Girls Space Day & Astronaut Convocation 2022
POSTED ON: Thursday, March 3, 2022 12:00 AM by Sarah Durkin
On March 3, the USNA STEM Center hosted a High School Girls Space Day held at the U.S. Naval Academy, sponsored by the Maryland Space Grant Consortium, the Office of Naval Research, and the Naval Academy Foundation. As part of the event, students attended the Astronaut Convocation hosted by the Aerospace Engineering Department and the Midshipmen American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Club.
About 30 students attended the event, and were divided into teams to take part in hands-on activities led by USNA STEM faculty and staff memberswith support from midshipmen. Activities included Robotics presented by Pat Meinhold and Lou Cox, where students programmed "Mars Rover" calculator robots to navigate a maze, and Flight Dynamics presented by Prof Mark Murray and CAPT Cecily Walsh, where students launched straw rockets and toured the Aerospace Laboratory. Along with a tour of the new Hopper Hall Observatory, Prof Jeffrey Larsen and midshipmen presented a lesson about light curves using data collected from the Observatory in connection with NASA's DART mission. Students also attended a planetarium show featuring celestial navigation presented by LT Kai Seglem.
Following dinner discussions with midshipmen, the students attended the Astronaut Convocation, focused on NASA's Artemis Program, a mission to return to the moon. Presenters included USNA-graduate astronauts BGen Charles Duke, USAF (Ret.) (moonwalker), and Col. Robert Cabana, USMC (Ret.). MajGen Charles Bolden, USMC (Ret.), a USNA-graduate astronaut and former NASA administrator led the panel discussion Q&A discussion. LCDR Kayla Barron, a USNA-graduate (Class of 2010) currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS), provided a video addressing the convocation audience. Additionally, the students joined the Meet and Greet with the presenters and five other USNA-grad astronauts.
Category: General Interest