Beaches Campus Science Teacher Receives Space 2023 Scholarship

Shannon Johnson, science teacher at the Beaches Campus, received the Space 2023 Scholarship last week to attend the Space Port Area Conference for Educators at NASA this summer. The scholarship was awarded to only 11 educators in the state of Florida and was provided by the Astronaut Memorial Foundation and Florida Space Grant Consortium. 

The Space Port Area Conference for Educators (SPACE) aims to serve teachers from across the nation by providing professional development opportunities, and high-quality STEM instructional resources. Attending educators spend three days at The Center for Space Education developing curriculum and forming relationships. Educators will be given the opportunity to be immersed in the operations of Kennedy Space Center – including keynote sessions with astronauts, launch directors, and other space icons, as well as behind the scene tours of Space Port Operations.

“I am thrilled that I will be given the opportunity to learn about current and past space travel directly from NASA astronauts, launch directors and other NASA educators,” said Shannon. “This is a once in a lifetime experience that I will benefit greatly from and will be able to share with my students when we return to school in the fall. I am most excited about the following opportunities: getting to fly over the Space Florida Launch & Landing Facility and runway, the opportunity to tour behind the scene areas of Kennedy Space Center, participating in a STEM class that will take me through the process of space-settlement design, and also getting to build a Neutral Buoyancy Lab virtual reality model and underwater research habitat,”

“I am very happy for Shannon to have this wonderful opportunity. Shannon is an exceptional educator, and I am so proud to have her on the faculty; she is an incredible professional, and I know she will utilize this experience to benefit the students as well as her colleagues,” said Jennifer Ketchum, Head of Lower School.