{"id":577166,"date":"2026-04-11T03:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T03:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/577166\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T03:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T03:20:12","slug":"artemis-ii-astronauts-arent-the-only-ones-inspiring-the-next-generation-to-love-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/577166\/","title":{"rendered":"Artemis II astronauts aren\u2019t the only ones inspiring the next generation to love science"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the late Sally Ride launched into space in the summer of 1983, she blazed a trail for women astronauts, including Christina Koch<\/a>, the first woman to orbit the moon days ago and who is set to splash down with her Artemis II crew members late Friday afternoon off the coast of San Diego.<\/p>\n

And when Ride retired from NASA and began teaching physics at UC San Diego, she knew she wanted to help close the gender gap in science and engineering.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents will tell you that science and engineering are important, science, technology, engineering are important,\u201d Ride said in 2011. \u201cBut they\u2019ll say it\u2019s important, but it\u2019s not important for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ride said one major way to spark interest was that students needed \u201cto see a diverse group of scientists that, by the way, look to them like normal people \u2026 so that they can start humanizing these careers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2001, she launched Sally Ride Science with her life partner, Tam O\u2019Shaughnessy, and colleagues to help young girls realize these subjects could be important for them.<\/p>\n

Fourteen years after Ride\u2019s death, the organization continues her mission and is expanding<\/a> from a summer camp to a yearlong program with UCSD<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents are the future,\u201d said Maysoon Lehmeidi, who oversees Sally Ride Science programming. \u201cThat was one of her goals, was really to inspire more young women, especially underrepresented women, to not be afraid of STEM, not be afraid of math and physics, and really take on that challenge and be a part of the solution for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Women made up eight percent<\/a> of STEM workers in 1970, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Today, they make up nearly 30 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sally Ride Science is working to prepare more children, especially young girls, for jobs in STEM, Lehmeidi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents can’t be what they can’t see,\u201d she said. \u201cSo the more we expose students to the different types of careers through the people who are actually teaching the classes, then the more they’ll be able to see themselves in those shoes one day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The program has served thousands of students, from San Diego County and Southern California, mostly from fourth through ninth grade. One major change is that programming, taught by local grade school teachers, scientists and engineers, now serves students from kindergarten to high school. Students are taught everything from robotics to marine biology. Some classes are also taught in Spanish.<\/p>\n

Lehmeidi said Sally Ride Science is partnering with the San Diego County Office of Education to provide training opportunities for teachers this summer, \u201cand hopefully to give them additional skills on how to make science more accessible to their students in the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alegra Calderon, 17, who lives in Redlands, attended the Sally Ride camp twice as an elementary school student. Her godfather, who worked at the UCSD, encouraged her to attend, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cScience had always been interesting to me, but I was never too educated on it until visiting the camp,\u201d she said. \u201cOnce I, like, started getting into it, I realized that it was something that I really enjoyed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Alegra<\/p>\n

Alegra Calderon, now 17, attended the Sally Ride Science program at UC San Diego twice in elementary school.<\/p>\n

As the world watches the Artemis II crew make history with their 10-day lunar flyby, Calderon said she\u2019s been thinking about her time at the camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really like empowering to like, be around other groups where it was like all girls and like, this is like where you wanted to be,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Calderon is off to college soon, where she will major in business. But she\u2019ll find her way back to science, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that everyone should know that science is for everyone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the late Sally Ride launched into space in the summer of 1983, she blazed a trail for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-577166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}