Students reach new heights with NASA TechRise Challenge

Congratulations to STEM Lab for being named a winner of the NASA TechRise Challenge for the second year in a row! The talented team of students designed a weather balloon experiment to study how packaging materials are affected by radiation in space. These students submitted their proposal in October and just learned about the good news.

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The NASA TechRise Student Challenge invites teams of sixth to 12th-grade students to design, build, and launch science and technology experiments on high-altitude balloon flights during the upcoming school year.

The winning teams will each receive $1,500 to build their payloads and be awarded an assigned spot on a NASA-sponsored commercial high-altitude balloon flight. Flight tests will offer more than four hours of float time at approximately 70,000 feet and provide exposure to Earth’s atmosphere plus views of our planet. Winning teams will also receive technical support during the experiment build phase from Future Engineers advisors, who will help students learn the skills they need to turn their experiment idea into reality.

The challenge offers hands-on insight into the design and test process used by NASA-supported researchers. It aims to inspire a deeper understanding of Earth’s atmosphere, surface features, and climate; space exploration; coding; electronics; and the value of test data.

This story exemplifies our ELEVATE Focus Area: 21st Century Learners. Sharing stories of students who collaborate, think critically, problem-solve and are digitally literate to thrive in today’s ever-changing world.