Greater than 2,000 curious guests from Newport Information and the encircling Hampton Roads area of Virginia flocked to Christopher Newport College (CNU) on Could 31, 2025 for his or her annual STEM (Science, Know-how, Engineering, & Arithmetic) Group Day, and the NASA eClips crew from the Nationwide Institute of Aerospace’s Middle for Integrative STEM Schooling (NIA-CISE) made positive each certainly one of them left with their eyes—and imaginations—fastened on the Solar.
On the coronary heart of the NASA eClips exhibit have been NIA’s STEM Scholar Ambassadors—a crew of rigorously chosen highschool college students from the Tidewater area of Virginia who underwent in depth coaching with NASA eClips educators throughout the summer season of 2024. These brilliant, enthusiastic younger leaders are obsessed with speaking about and advocating for STEM. The STEM Scholar Ambassador program is made doable by a Coastal Virginia STEM Hub grant from the Virginia Basic Meeting and is already having an impression.
All through the day, the Ambassadors engaged learners of all ages with two inventive, hands-on experiences that related STEM and the humanities:
- Chalk Corona – Utilizing black building paper and vibrant chalk, members recreated the Solar’s corona—the super-hot, gaseous “crown” that’s seen throughout a complete photo voltaic eclipse. Whereas they shaded and smudged, the Ambassadors defined why the corona is so necessary to photo voltaic analysis and handed out licensed photo voltaic viewers for protected Solar-watching again residence.
- Pastel Auroras – Guests additionally found how photo voltaic wind, storms, and coronal mass ejections (aka Solar “sneezes”) spark Earth’s dazzling auroras. Guided by the Ambassadors, budding artists layered pastels to seize swirling curtains of sunshine, tying current mid-Atlantic aurora sightings to real-time house climate.
All through the day, the Ambassadors’ vitality was contagious, turning advanced heliophysics into hands-on enjoyable and opening eyes to the alternatives and careers that await in STEM. Judging by the grins—and the dusting of chalk and pastels—NASA eClips’ presence was, fairly actually, the “crowning” contact on an unforgettable group celebration of STEM.
The NASA eClips undertaking supplies educators with standards-based movies, actions, and classes to extend STEM literacy by the lens of NASA. It’s supported by NASA beneath cooperative settlement award quantity NNX16AB91A and is a part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Study extra about how Science Activation connects NASA science specialists, actual content material, and experiences with group leaders to do science in ways in which activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and past: https://science.nasa.gov/learn