Facing Hardships and Building Spaceships - Youth Program Guide

This program is designed to teach participants about inequalities that groups of people both past and present face. To begin the day, they will read The Sneetches and discuss what it feels like to be treated unfairly. Students will watch a portion of the movie Hidden Figures and discuss how qualified groups of minorities, like women and African Americans, worked in a space run predominantly by white men. Students will learn how these people faced hardships and had to put in extra effort to be recognized and accepted in their field. They will then take part in a rocket building relay race obstacle course! The day will end with students launching their rockets.

Background Information
In 1960, when the movie Hidden Figures is set, only 0.9% of engineers were women, and less than 1% were Black or African American (Data from US Census Bureau, 1960, Census of the Population, Washington DC). Since then, those numbers have increased but women and African Americans are still underrepresented in STEM fields. In 2020 15% of engineers were women, and 3.3% were Black or African American (Data from US Census Bureau, 2020, Census of the Population, Washington DC).