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Summer campers at Camp Quality Heartland gained a new appreciation for their solar system, thanks to a visit from a NASA education specialist.

Camp Quality Heartland in Iowa offers a summer camp program for children with cancer and their siblings. The goal of Camp Quality is to provide the children the opportunity to "forget the illness that has disrupted their lives, and instead enjoy a week at summer camp." The camp is funded by donations and staffed by volunteers, so there is no charge for the families of the children. Each child has a counselor at the camp, and medical personnel are also on hand.

Wil Robertson, a NASA aerospace education specialist, visited the camp recently to share the excitement of exploration with about 75 children. He led them in an activity in which they made a model of the solar system. He then explained how the activity related to the Vision for Space Exploration. Through the Vision, NASA will return humans to the moon and then send them onward to Mars and beyond.

With what they learned about the relative distances between objects in the solar system, the children were able to understand why going to the moon is a logical step before moving to destinations that are farther away. "They got a quick understanding of, 'Whoa, Mars is that far away and the moon is only this far away,'" Robertson said. The children really enjoyed the hands-on experience learning about the planets and were interested in the things they learned. "They were very much in tune with the things in the solar system."

Image to left: Summer camp participants learned about space exploration from NASA education specialist Wil Robertson. Credit: NASA

Robertson said that it was an inspiration to see how the children dealt with the challenges they face, adding that he was pleased to be able to represent NASA by speaking at the camp.

Through the Aerospace Education Services Project, NASA continues the agency's tradition of investing in the nation's education programs. AESP is directly tied to the agency's major education goal of engaging Americans in NASA's mission. Through hands-on, interactive educational activities, NASA is engaging students, educators, families, the general public and all agency stakeholders to increase Americans' science and technology literacy.

David Hitt/NASA Educational Technology Services