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Nearly 90 students from minority-serving institutions and community colleges
around the country visited Johnson Space Center to participate
in the Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program.
Participants were selected to design, build and fly experiments on board an aircraft
that flies parabolic arcs to simulate microgravity.
Doug Goforth: "This program ties right into NASA'S goal of preparing students for jobs
in STEM careers by allowing them to take their own research all the way from the proposal,
design, Construction and testing phase in a Parabolic flight.
We treat them just Like NASA researchers."
The flight week for minority and community college students was designed
to inspire students from underrepresented and underserved populations to pursue careers
in science, technology, engineering and math.
Carl Person: "the flight really provides them an opportunity to realize that yeah, I can do this.
I see other people who look like me and talk like me are doing this.
It's exhausting but it's also extraordinarily intellectually stimulating."
Ian Jones: "I think that when you can feel, see and touch something it makes it
that much more real rather than just reading about it in a book In addition to science,
engineering and research skills, the students also honed other abilities."
Eduardo Nicolau: "The most important thing I've learned from this experience is
about teamwork and leadership skills."
JSC's education office will host student
and teacher groups during several other reduced gravity flight weeks this summer Nicole
Guglielmo: "It was awesome.
It was the best experience of my life
and I don't think anything could top what I was able to experience."