![]() There are many exciting and lucrative careers in STEM fields, and women working in those fields like Dr. Nahid Mohajeri are inspiring the next generation of powerful females working in science, technology, engineering and math. Dr. Nahid Mohajeri is the Advanced Polymer Technology General Manager at Nitto, Inc. Prior to joining Nitto, Dr. Mohajeri was the CEO of HySense Technologies LLC., the company which she founded with a mission of developing/marketing a chemochromic hydrogen detection tape developed by scientists at NASA-KSC and University of Central Florida. She is the inventor/co-inventor of 12 patents and author/co-author of greater than 50 publications. Hundreds of young girls from various schools attended Dr. Nahid's presentation during Science Days hosted at FACENS University. "I really love to see so many girls come out from all over the state to feel empowered by Dr. Nahid," said Julia, a senior at Santa Rosalia COC High School who plans to pursue a career in Science. She attended the International Journey of Science & Technology last year and volunteered to be Dr. Nahid's translator this year. Paula Gonsalvez, a senior at Sorocaba High School, said she enjoyed Science Days experience, an opportunity where the students can talk with real STEM professionals and take part in a variety of very cool experiments. "I really loved the vibe that Dr. Nahid brings to all of these girls and it really just makes you think ‘Wow, I really can pursue a STEM, career and be successful'" Paula said. "Expanding the number of women in STEM fields has benefits far broader than diversity. It drives the bottom line revenue, profit and success of organizations across the world," Carla Cristian, Science Days project coordinator, said in a statement.
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![]() Mike Conroy, with the Florida Space Institute (FSI), joined the Michaelis Foundation for Global Education to bring STEM/STEAM inspiration to Brazilian students and families. Science Days included the soft opening at the Sorocaba Engineering School, (FACENS), in Sorocaba, a visit to a local High School, a 2-day event in Rio de Janeiro and six more Science Days throughout Brazil. The FACENS trip enabled talks with university leadership (Dean, International Relations, Research), faculty (predominantly Engineering) and students while the “soft” opening included over 1,000 students from area middle and high schools. FACENS expressed desires to: partner with UCF, exchange students, exchange projects, team on projects and host guest lectures. An evening lecture on complex design drew over 200 attendees. Interest exists in FSI’s Senior Design approach with a desire to have FACENS student teams work on FSI projects as well as to replicate the program at FACENS. Read full article: fsi.ucf.edu/2019/05/13/brazil-science-days/ ![]() The Michaelis Foundation is very proud to partner with UCF, FIT, FACENS and more than 12 universities around the world to create a talent pipeline in the space exploration modeling & simulation field. The Simulation Exploration Experience (SEE) joins students, industry, professional associations, and faculty together for an annual modeling and simulation (M&S) challenge. SEE champions collaborative collegiate-level modeling and simulation by providing a venue for students to work in highly dispersed inter-university teams to design, develop, test, and execute a simulated lunar mission. Participating teams gain valuable knowledge, skills, and increased employability by working closely with industry professionals, NASA, and faculty advisers. Special thanks to Jean Wright, Docent NASA Kennedy Space Center. ![]() Space inspires citizens in every country to be creative and collaborate, and with new amazing opportunities available in the space exploration field, representatives from seven different space agencies and space foundations, including Israel Ian Ramon Foundation, the European Space Agency Austria BIC, NASA, the Brazilian Space Agency AEB, Buzz Aldrin Share Space Foundation, the Florida Space Institute and the Space Laboratory, spoke about STEM and the future of Space exploration and the need for countries to work together in space during Science Days last month at the International Space Expo & Symposium hosted in several cities in Brazil. "One of the defining characteristics of the modern space age is the way that more nations are taking part like never before, said Jeff Michaelis, space educator with the Michaelis Foundation". Space exploration is no longer a battle to prove which country is the best, and the citizens of the United States can expect even more international involvement as NASA prepares to return to the moon on its way to Mars. That’s evident in President Donald Trump’s plans for space exploration, which is steeped in international partnerships. His fiscal year 2019 budget provides funds to develop the foundation for the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, which would give the U.S. "a strategic presence in the lunar vicinity that will drive the U.S activity with commercial and international partners and help us further explore the moon and its resources and translate that experience toward human missions to Mars." Working with others is how NASA will succeed, Administrator Jim Bridenstine said at the Wilson Center last fall, and according to the Houston Chronicle, Bridenstine said. “Now, NASA is international, cooperative, and we’re able to do more for a whole lot less than ever before.” The space leaders who attended Science Days expressed their commitment to international cooperation, and to finding new ways to collaborate even more in the near future. As more countries expand their space activities, strong international cooperation and collaboration is imperative, according to space leaders from around the globe who attended Science Days. "We're all in this together, and we will all benefit from these activities," said Nadia Sacenco , a senior space executive at the Brazilian Space Agency. ![]() Scientific presentations are often left to professionals, but more than 9,300 middle school and high school students attended Science Days on March 27th and 28th in the city of Fortaleza to learn about Science and the future of Space exploration. Co-sponsored by the Michaelis Foundation, the STEM/Space event featured hundreds of innovative projects, exhibitions and students' experiments. “Being able to have this experience of actually presenting our experiments to thousands of students was so amazing,” said Giovanna Machado, director of the Future Scientists program. "Participating at Science Days in Fortaleza was unforgettable. This event gave me the experience of being able to share and expose to other people a little bit of my project, the Future Scientists program and what I love about Science! The most interesting thing was to be able to see in the eyes of the people to whom I presented, especially to the children, the brilliance in knowing that Science is present in so many things and that it can be used for more innumerable others. Also important was the interaction we had with the other exhibitors, international speakers and with other students at the tables next to me! All committed to transmit what they believe, what I also believe! Without a doubt, Science Days was memorable for me." said Vitoria Rocha, member of the Future Scientists. ![]() The Michaelis Foundation is working in collaboration with the American Space Museum expanding its STEM education outreach. "What makes this collaboration even more special it is the fact that it coincides with the 49th anniversary of Apollo 12 landing on the Moon, and we have a large group of very young students learning exactly how that second moon landing occurred,” said Carla Michaelis the project coordinator. The American Space Museum has become one of the world’s unique space museum, exhibiting hundreds of artifacts used by space workers during the Moon Race of the 1960s-70s to the 30-year Space Shuttle program that began in the 1980s. ![]() Today, high school students got a behind-the-scenes experience at the Astronaut Space and learned how critically important planning and determination is. For young students, the project focus on STEM through exploration, play and building curiosity about how the space program began and the way things work. "STEM learning is important for everyone and can happen anytime, anywhere. The real-life skills that kids develop when learning STEM through our program help make everyone better problem-solvers and learners", commented Carla Michaelis with TMFGE. For the High School student Henrique Crosby., it was an eye-opening trip. "It's a really good experience for us kids to get out and explore and get a better understanding of how the space program works and we're able to get a better perspective of all the opportunities that are available for us,” Henrique said. Our special thanks to Mr. Gary Hayward and Michael Lombardi. ![]() More than 330 Students embarked on a mission to design a science experiment to was carried out in the micro-gravity environment aboard the International Space Station. The project is part of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program, offered by The Michaelis Foundation, KSC International Academy, Brazil Florida Chamber of Commerce, U.S. National Center for Earth and Science Education and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education to inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers. The objective of this specific project is to broaden the interest of cooperation between Brazilian American students and educators in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) Update: NanoRacks Module-9: The crew activated designated mixture tubes for the fifth session of the NanoRacks Module-9 investigation today. The experiments contained in these tubes support a variety of experiments sponsored by the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE). The student-designed experiments address challenges of living and working in space. The program is also a key initiative for US science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, educating and inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers to work on the space program. Findings from student experiments may contribute to future experiments that benefit the space program. The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) has provided 14 flight opportunities to date for communities across the U.S., Canada, and Brazil, to conduct a microgravity experiment design competition at the local level—on the final flights of Space Shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis (STS-134 and STS-135), and Missions 1 through 12 to ISS. In each participating community, student teams write proposals vying for a flight experiment slot reserved just for their community in a real research mini-laboratory scheduled to fly to Low Earth Orbit. ![]() With a new virtual spaceport added to SEE's 8th simulated Space mission -- simulated tourism and commerce come to create new possibilities in SEE's simulated space mission to the Moon and Mars . with more than 100 people involved-- directly and indirectly-- this inter-university international SEE team-- a partnering of government industry, associations and academia, annually, demonstrates its commitment to championing, challenging and creating collegiate modeling and simulation and education. Priscilla Elfrey, Executive Chair of SEE' Strategic Action committee since 2011, reports that this effort addresses a critical workforce development concern. She further notes that SEE students from universities in the US, Brazil, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Burkina-Fasso and Pakistan are currently collaborating across 11 time zones learning simulation -- supported by SISO, Florida Space Institute, Liophant , VSEE, unity Design, CrtnResults, Pitch Industries, V-T MAK and NASA with content, systems project management and mentors. They collaborate, she says, " in a unique electronic learning organization -- thinking globally but working locally under faculty direction -- SEE is a continuous demonstration of information sharing, trust and creativity that always amazes." Having learned complex distributed simulation by doing it and observing how it is done, everyone -- students, faculty, industry, associations and NASA got together -- electronically and in person-- for SEE 2018 to perform a simulated mission about humans moving off the planet creating an outpost for science, commerce and tourism on the far side of the Moon and robotic preparation preceding human exploration of Mars. SEE 2018 took place remotely and physically in Sofia, Bulgaria under the direction of SEE 2018 Co-executive Program Chairs Nikolay Tomov, chairman of the Bulgarian Simulation Association ( BULSIM) and adviser to the participating Bulgarian teams and Jefferson Michaelis, CEO of the Michaelis Foundation for Global Education and adviser to the FACENS, Brazil US team. ![]() The Michaelis Foundation for Global Education is proud to be the co-founding and presenting host of the Science Days 2018 edition, the largest—and only—International SPACE/STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) event, created in collaboration with NASA to inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers and space explorers. This free event was presented in five cities around Brazil and featured more than 1,150 STEM organizations, schools and space startups presenting hands-on, fun science activities for people of all ages. The Science Days 2018 received more than 38,000 participants including guests from academia, government and business sectors who are committed to empowering students to thrive in an evolving world. “Science Days is a wonderful opportunity for students, teachers, schools, astropreneurs and young business leaders to showcase projects, network and discuss how we can best prepare our youth for the in-demand jobs of today and tomorrow,” said Jefferson Michaelis, TMFGE President. “Science Days is already shaping up to be the biggest and best, with a fantastic lineup of speakers and panels that will inspire, engage and empower attendees.” The Michaelis Foundation For Global Education, TMFGE is a nonprofit organization that provides a transformative learning experience for K-12 students and teachers across the U.S. and internationally through pathways in science, technology. engineering, arts and math. |
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