Area students — Benjamin Lindsay, Robert Pritchett III, and La’Niyah Anderson — recently attended Space Academy at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, home of Space Camp®, Space Camp® Robotics™, Aviation Challenge®, U.S. Cyber Camp® and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center’s Official Visitor Center.

The weeklong educational program promotes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), while training students with hands-on activities and missions based on teamwork, leadership and problem solving.

This program is specifically designed for trainees who have a passion for space exploration. The three students spent the week training with a team that flew a simulated space mission to the International Space Station (ISS), the Moon or Mars. The crew participated in experiments and successfully completed an extra-vehicular activity (EVA), or spacewalk. Lindsay, Pritchett and La’Niyah and their crew returned to earth in time to graduate with honors.

Space Camp operates year-round in Huntsville and uses astronaut training techniques to engage trainees in real-world applications of STEM subjects. Students sleep in quarters designed to resemble the ISS and train in simulators like those used by NASA.

More than 850,000 trainees have graduated from a Space Camp® program since its inception in Huntsville in 1982, including European Space Agency astronaut, Samantha Cristoforetti, and NASA astronauts Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, Dr. Kate Rubins, Dr. Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Christina Koch, who is serving on board the International Space Station.

Children and teachers from all 50 states and almost 150 international locations have attended a Space Camp® program.

To learn more about Space Camp visit www.spacecamp.com or call 1-800-637-7223.

(This article originally appeared in the Wednesday, June 19 issue of the Demopolis Times.)