A Classroom, from Outer Space

By Jim Fields, The 74

John Shoffner, 68, has been a professional race car driver, a skydiver and businessman. But since he was 8 years old, what he wanted most was to be an astronaut. He never thought he’d get to be one. But this May, he got a chance to realize that dream. Through a private space company, Axiom Space, John spent 10 days on the International Space Station, riding a SpaceX rocket.

While in orbit, he conducted single-cell genome sequencing demonstrations.

“We were able to do so many great things, and have lots of fun — including making space habitat videos,” he said.

The video series, Habitat Space, is a collection of short videos focusing on STEM for K-12 students, while also showing what it’s like to live and work in space.

The videos can be used as an element in a classroom, and teachers can build lessons around them.

“Children and students, they all have a curiosity,” Shoffner said. “So through the richness of these videos, we want them to run across something that is of a key interest to them and start to explore that.”

But he says there’s also a lesson about how to make STEM fun. He says STEM “teaches us some great skills of communication, of creative thinking and problem solving.”

He hopes the videos will inspire both students and teachers to uncover their natural curiosity. “That will be really exciting to know that’s possible,” Shoffner said.

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This story was produced by The 74, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on education in America.

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