NASA Collaborates with Maryland 4H for a Heliophysics-Based Middle School Youth Club

NASA's Heliosphysics Education Activation Team (NASA HEAT) collaborated with Maryland 4H to co-develop and pilot a heliophysics-based club with ten middle-school-aged youths. The club consisted of six two-hour virtual club sessions that focused on how NASA missions study the heliosphere. Ten 4H youth, from MD and PA, attended the three-week club, led by a NASA HEAT educator, Christina Milotte, and the MD 4H STEM coordinator, Mark Demorra. The activities in the club guided youth in the exploration of heliophysics concepts through the creation of aurora bracelets, coronagraph flip books, spacecraft models; constructing spectroscopes; collecting data on UV light and space weather; writing postcards to extraterrestrials on their way to the heliosphere; modeling a gravity assist maneuver; and making observations of the Sun using solar eclipse glasses and pinhole projectors. Also in attendance were eight 4H volunteers who will be replicating the club in their own communities in the next few months.
Enrolled 4-H youth members who are 4-H program age 11-13 can register for the “4-H + NASA Mission: Sun” STEM-focused virtual event series at the following link: https://extension.umd.edu/programs/4-h-youth-development

The NASA HEAT project is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number 80NSSC21K1560 and is part of NASA's Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about NASA HEAT: https://science.nasa.gov/science-activation-team/nasa-heliophysics-education-activation-team

https://extension.umd.edu/programs/4-h-youth-development/program-areas/stem/4-h-nasa