Wyoming NASA Space Grant Consortium

09/14/2026

Happy Monday! 💛

Our outreach team, along with our friends from the Science Initiative Roadshow, is excited to bring STEM-ology back for another semester! ✨

And our first week starts NOW with Animal Science! 🐾🐍🐟
This week, we’re kicking things off with hands-on activities all about animals, adaptations, habitats, and more, with something for little learners, lifelong learners, and whole families.

Throughout the semester, STEM-ology will explore Animal Science in September, Meteorology in October, and Mathematics in November through playful, hands-on STEM experiences led by UW scientists, students, and educators. 🧪🔧🧠

Join us for:
🧸 Toddler Tuesdays
🔬 Senior Science Fridays
🚀 STEM Saturdays

Whether you love experimenting, building, asking questions, solving problems, or just trying something new, there’s a STEM-ology experience for you!

👉 See the full schedule, learn more, and RSVP:
wyomingspacegrant.org/stem-ology

And please help us spread the word by sharing this post with families, friends, teachers, and anyone else who might enjoy some free hands-on STEM! 💛

06/30/2026

Looking for ways to keep students curious, creative, and connected to STEM this summer? NASA has a whole galaxy of free activities and opportunities for students and families.

Students ages 13–18 can join the NASA x Hack Club Stardance Challenge through Sept. 30, using real NASA mission data to create projects like apps, code, models, simulations, electronics, and more.

NASA also offers ways to explore real STEM careers, go behind the scenes with NASA professionals, and learn about the many different paths that support space and aviation work.

For anyone who wants to do real science from home, NASA Citizen Science projects let people of all ages help with research, including tracking night-shining clouds through Space Cloud Watch or identifying clouds on Mars with Cloudspotting on Mars.

Whether you’re building, exploring, coding, cloud-watching, or just looking for something new to learn, NASA’s STEM Resources are a great launch pad for summer curiosity. 🚀

Learn more here: https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/space-out-this-summer-with-variety-of-nasa-stem-activities/?fbclid=IwY2xjawSwtcBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFINkFWdzNtOXFPTVV4NlB2c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHp_rx8cdYnqJGd9C4LLeTwwKsO39iTkFnaFo6FX-ai0mcfQgC9GH7F69gyKb_aem_w-3tkM3PzMxpBw6e2F1spQ

Summer is “Go” for launch, and NASA has a universe of ways to help you to jump in, explore, and create! Whether you prefer to spend this season fueling your

05/13/2026

Our final student highlight of the semester features Jasmin Peitz, a sophomore at UW studying astronomy & astrophysics. Jasmin's undergraduate research focuses on identifying and cataloging radio sources in the Whirlpool Galaxy to further our understanding of the galaxy’s star formation and supernovae abundance. Learn more about Jasmin's work in this week's blog post!

Jasmin’s undergraduate research focuses on identifying and cataloging radio sources in the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) to further our understanding of the galaxy’s star formation and supernovae abundance.

05/01/2026

On the heels of the highlight video posted earlier this week, we've also just released an uncut 360° video, recorded in 8K resolution, of the entire 2-hour flight from Eastside Elementary School in Cody back in March.

⚠️Warning⚠️ This video contains incredible vistas 90,000 feet above the Big Horn Basin, with sweeping views of the surrounding Big Horn, Absaroka, Wind River, and Teton Mountain Ranges. The best part is that you can manually pan around, look up/down, etc. From launch to landing. It's pretty cool what these cameras can do.

The last time we uploaded a 360 video like this, it went a bit viral and currently has over a million views on YouTube! How do you think this one compares?

(as usual, check comments for link to the video)

04/28/2026

For the second March in a row, we launched a high-altitude balloon with a bunch of excited students at Eastside Elementary School in Cody. The 3rd graders built the payloads, but most of the school came out to watch the balloon begin its voyage into the stratosphere. You can also join in the fun and watch the recently released highlight video from that launch, now live on YouTube! (link in comments)

04/17/2026

Rachel Fanelli is one of our 2025–26 graduate student fellows. For her PhD, she gets to study chipmunks. So cool! Learn more about Rachel in this week's blog post!

For her PhD research, Rachel is interested in understanding how ambient temperature and food availability influence torpor-arousal cycles, and how torpor influences cognition and neuroanatomy in least chipmunks, a common hibernating rodent found throughout Wyoming.

03/26/2026

This week, we are excited to highlight Logan Opsal, another one of our undergraduate research fellows for 2025–26! Logan is a senior at UW studying Wildlife and Fisheries Biology and Management. His undergraduate research focuses on evaluating how five stocked trout and salmon species (salmonids) from four Wyoming reservoirs share food and habitat resources.

Logan’s current undergraduate research focuses on evaluating how five stocked trout and salmon species (salmonids) from four Wyoming reservoirs share food and habitat resources.

03/20/2026

Thanks again to Eastside Elementary School in Cody for hosting another WY Space Grant balloon launch yesterday! Some really cool flight videos are in the works 👀

NASA Weather Balloon Day!

03/04/2026

The highlight video of our balloon launch last month from Glenrock is now live on YouTube! Our partner school for this launch was Wyoming Connections Academy, and their students developed payloads that flew up to over 90,000 feet.

Here's a screen grab from the video looking down on the northern Laramie Mountains. As usual, see comments for a 🔗 to the video!

01/27/2026

We are just 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐬 away from our first 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 of the semester! 𝘞𝘦 𝘥𝘰 𝘢𝘴𝘬 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴 - 𝘴𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺!⁣
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🧸 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬 ⁣
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Big discoveries start small! Spark wonder and build early science skills with Toddler Tuesdays! Designed for young children (geared toward ages 3–5) and their grown-ups, these playful, hands-on sessions invite little learners to explore science through sensory activities and curiosity-driven fun. Each month features a new theme (Bugs, Physics, or Energy & Natural Resources) with two short session options to fit busy schedules. ⁣
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📅 𝐅𝐞𝐛. 𝟏𝟕 | 𝐌𝐚𝐫. 𝟐𝟒 | 𝐀𝐩𝐫. 𝟐𝟏 ⁣
⏰ 𝟷𝟶–𝟷𝟶:𝟹𝟶𝘢𝘮 𝘰𝘳 𝟷𝟶:𝟹𝟶–𝟷𝟷𝘢𝘮 ⁣
📍 UW Science Initiative Building, Room 4003 (4th floor) ⁣
🔗 RSVP requested: tinyurl.com/ToddlerTSandbox ⁣
Learn more at wyomingspacegrant.org/stem-ology