Indiana State Museum partners in ‘Dream Big’ program to connect students to outer space

Educators in central and southwest Indiana have a unique opportunity to connect their students with access to outer space through a new program being offered at the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites’ locations.

The program is called Dream Big: STEPS (Scalable Testing of Electronics and Programming by Students) to Space. Created by Indiana-based nonprofit NearSpace Education, the program aims to remove barriers to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education and foster future aerospace innovators and problem solvers. NearSpace Education plans to engage up to 900 Indiana students in fifth through eighth grades through Dream Big Phase II.

The Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis and the Angel Mounds State Historic Site in Evansville were selected as regional partner locations for Dream Big Phase II. By participating as a partner for Dream Big, the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites hopes to ignite students’ sense of wonder for STEM careers and foster the next generation of aerospace innovators and problem solvers.

“Building STEM confidence and building pathways for students to see a future in STEM careers is really important,” said Bethany Thomas, the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites’ vice president of education and engagement. “We’re able to use our connections to help support that and give back to our community by offering this rare experience.”

Ahead of the start of Dream Big Phase II this summer, the Indiana State Museum and Angel Mounds are seeking area middle school teachers interested in forming teams of 20 to 30 students. With instruction and materials provided by NearSpace Education and NASA, each teacher will guide their team to learn basic coding skills. Teams will work through spring 2027 to design experiments that align with NASA space missions and program the experiments onto a pocket-sized computer board called a Micro:Bit.

The teams’ Micro:Bits will be loaded onto high-altitude balloons and launched to the edge of space during test flight events next spring at the partner locations. Using data collected through testing, the teams will refine their experiments to produce a final Micro:Bit that will be loaded aboard a NearSpace Launch Spacecraft and sent into Low Earth Orbit on a SpaceX Transporter mission in fall 2027.

Middle school teachers in Indianapolis, Evansville or the surrounding areas interested in participating in Dream Big Phase II can visit IndianaMuseum.org and submit an interest form.