At NASA’s Kennedy Area Middle, sustainability and preservation efforts right here on Earth are as a lot of a precedence as rocket launches, spacecraft, and the exploration of worlds past our personal.
In celebration of Earth Day 2024, practically 100 college students from Andrew Jackson Center Faculty in Titusville, Florida, and a digital viewers of scholars throughout the nation, attended NASA’s Subsequent Gen STEM Earth Day panel on the NASA Information Middle’s John Holliman Auditorium and press website “bullpen.”
Readily available have been NASA environmental and academic consultants who mentioned Kennedy’s distinctive function balancing area launch expertise and guarded habitat, the middle’s new electrical automobile charging stations, and NASA’s Earthrise academic initiative that goals to extend science, expertise, engineering, and arithmetic literacy.
Bob Kline, appearing chief of Kennedy’s Environmental Assurance Department, helped college students be taught in regards to the significance of defending the habitat that’s refuge to greater than 1,500 species of crops and animals. NASA Kennedy shares a boundary with the Merritt Island Nationwide Wildlife Refuge and the Canaveral Nationwide Seashore, which embody over 140,000 acres of land, waters, and guarded habitats.
“As a result of we’re a wildlife refuge, it’s straightforward to suppose the launches would influence the wildlife, but it surely’s largely the buildings that may get impacted by wildlife making an attempt to reside on them,” stated Kline. “Throughout renovations we’ve needed to do particular issues to guard bats and different birds who reside in roofs or below bridges. Every thing we do, we’re very aware of the animals, whether or not they’re endangered or not. We care about them deeply.”
Panelist Kim King-Wrenn, a park ranger from Merritt Island Nationwide Wildlife Refuge, echoed Kline’s message. She informed college students that the spaceport is without doubt one of the most biologically various locations on the earth.
House to every part from the Florida scrub jay to endangered inexperienced sea turtles, King-Wrenn classifies Kennedy because the goldilocks of local weather zones.
“Proper right here is the place the northern temperate zone and the southern, subtropical zones come collectively,” King-Wrenn stated. “The extra habitat variety there may be, the extra various houses there are for extra sorts of animals.”
College students like seventh grader Zoe Oderman have been fascinated by the coexistence of nature and expertise throughout the spaceport. “The Car Meeting Constructing was superior, however I like that the seashores at Kennedy Area Middle give turtles a spot to put their eggs, as a result of different locations within the space don’t,” Oderman stated.
Kennedy worker Spencer Davis mentioned the set up of 56 electrical automobile charging stations throughout his time on the NASA Transportation Workplace on heart. The brand new infrastructure helps assist a fleet of electrical authorities autos together with the all-electric crew transport autos that may take Artemis astronauts from their crew quarters to the launch pad.
Later this summer time, Davis and his crew will likely be honored on the White Home for these efforts to facilitate a way forward for zero carbon emission authorities autos and assist save taxpayer cash.
“The large takeaway right here is to be able to cost up and drive one in every of Kennedy’s Chevrolet Bolts 100 miles, it solely prices $2.80,” Davis stated. “That’s mainly the worth of a smooth drink.”
The scholars additionally realized about Earthrise from panelist Kelly McCarthy, program specialist with NASA’s Workplace of STEM Engagement on the company’s Stennis Area Middle in Mississippi.
The NASA training initiative gives educators with entry to month-to-month collections of assets geared toward growing STEM literacy and understanding the significance of defending our residence planet.
“Earthrise is a very good strategy to discover out probably the most related and helpful solutions-based assets that exist proper now,” McCarthy stated.
Moreover providing their experience on sustainable practices in addition to phrases of encouragement to the longer term stewards of our planet, the panelists impressed college students to pursue STEM careers, together with at Kennedy.
“You are able to do something you need to do out right here, and should you actually apply your self you will get into any discipline,” Davis informed the scholars. “Don’t be afraid to step exterior the field. Don’t be afraid to do one thing utterly totally different, even when it’s scary. Take each alternative and seize the second.”
The occasion was coordinated via the Subsequent Gen STEM venture in NASA’s Workplace of STEM Engagement, which reaches college students in faculties and casual lecture rooms throughout the county.
View NASA’s Subsequent Gen STEM Earth Day Pupil Briefing right here:
