While NASA prepares to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, another mission was underway in Hampton, Virginia, to get young minds engaging with STEM and excited for the upcoming Artemis I launch. The Center of Science and Industry (COSI) teamed up with NASA’s Langley Research Center to distribute 400 Learning Lunchbox kits to area kindergarten through eighth grade students on September 28, as part of COSI and NASA’s larger nationwide STEM partnership.
Curated with five different science activities and experiments that were designed with state and national educational standards in mind, these kits promote STEM education, especially for underserved youth. According to COSI’s website, COSI and NASA have distributed more than 50,000 of these STEM Learning Lunchbox kits as of December 2021. Around 30,000 more Learning Lunchboxes are expected to be distributed nationwide following the recent distribution in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.
Seeking to nourish both body and mind, the Learning Lunchbox is designed to be distributed alongside meal programs. Partnering with NASA Langley and COSI was the Virginia Peninsula Foodbank, which generally distributes fresh food to approximately 250 to 300 households every month in the Hampton Coliseum parking lot. This past month, they expected to ramp up their efforts and feed 400 households, alongside the Learning Lunchbox distribution.
Outreach and education are critical components of raising the next generation of scientists and engineers, and hopefully many young minds are finding themselves exhilarated by the possibilities of science. Perhaps a few Hampton Roads students receiving miniature rockets in their Learning Lunchboxes will even find themselves inspired to work with real rockets one day.
“This partnership feeds the bodies and feeds the minds of the kids who are the Artemis generation here in Hampton Roads,” said Clayton Turner, Langley’s center director. “This is an exciting time to share the Artemis mission with the young people who are NASA’s future taking us to the moon and on to Mars.”
