Nebraska school children getting an out-of-this-world experience

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (KSNB) - Some Nebraska youths got a rare chance Wednesday to ask questions to the astronauts on board the International Space Station.

It happened during the Nebraska 4-H’s “Launching Nebraska-nauts into the 4-C’able Future” event on Wednesday morning in the Raise Nebraska building in Grand Island.

The 4-Cs included collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. Each C was demonstrated with a station where kids learn valuable lessons and did activities like building straw rockets that they launched outside.

Nebraska-nauts is a program for kids in Kindergarten all the way through 12th grade, that focuses on career paths in science, technology, engineering and math.

One eighth grader, Madeline Caldwell, says the event opened her eyes to careers in the fields of STEM.

“I didn’t know all these, like, jobs that were available and like, had to do with science, it’s just not something I would’ve thought of,” said Caldwell. “I hope to learn more stuff about it and I’m intrigued.”

Dawn Lindsley helped organize the event and she says that the event was representative of the goals of Nebraska 4-H.

“Creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication. And since 4-H is all about experiential learning, you’ll see them doing hands-on activities to practice those skills, and then they’ll debrief with all of our educators afterwards to find out what they learned,” Lindsley said.

Copyright 2021 KSNB. All rights reserved.