STEM SpaceLab is a unique education outreach program of Kentucky Space, a public private consortium in Kentucky emphasizing low cost, high value space exploration with active high-altitude balloon, sub-orbital, orbital and space station programs. In fact, it recently opened up a new research laboratory on the International Space Station and has successfully carried out research there.

Piloting a program with Valley Christian High School in San Jose - see this television report - has shown us that high school students are just as capable of developing and doing original research in space.

High School students may now design, build and fly their own space missions

Through Kentucky Space, STEM SpaceLab is offering an unprecedented two year dual credit program that starts in the junior year of high school and culminates with a senior year project that involves flying a real science payload to space!

Why are we doing this?

For a nation as heavily dependent on technical progress, not enough of our students are pursuing careers in the STEM disciplines. We want to complement classroom learning with the hands-on building of spacecraft. In our program, graduates will leave having learned and applied the relevant theories. And by building the program into existing educational curricula, school districts can have confidence that it meets their instructional criteria. This is more than an after-hours program.

We want to conduct real science. There are many unknowns about the micro-gravity and its effect, for example, on living things. High school students ask great questions, and we fully expect them to do important science. Moreover, students will be expected to present their results at conferences, just like their older peers.

We want to grow. STEM SpaceLab use a hybrid model of summer teacher training coupled with university distance learning systems to make the classroom available in any location. This means we can improve STEM education for both teachers and students.