Post by Austrian Space Forum (OeWF)

#ScienceSunday Research on STEM outreach consistently finds one thing: hands-on, multi-day experiences build lasting interest far more than single lectures or one-off STEM days (Kaggwa et al., 2023; Frontiers in Education, 2025). SIM:Space, OeWF's student mission at the Monsaraz Analog Research Station, is built on that model. Students don't observe a mission, they run one: daily operations, experiments, the full workload of a real analog crew, over multiple days rather than an afternoon. Studies on STEM equity point to sustained, hands-on exposure as one of the strongest predictors of later interest in STEM careers for students who don't otherwise get this kind of access (Avendano et al., 2019). SIM:Space is supported by Wirtschaftsagentur Wien , the City of Vienna's business agency. What would it take to give every student this kind of hands-on mission experience? Sources: Kaggwa et al. (2023): https://lnkd.in/egbEYJVZ Avendano et al. (2019): https://lnkd.in/e3DsNwzu Frontiers in Education (2025): https://lnkd.in/e2gf87fZ NUCLIO Observatório Lago Alqueva #STEM #SpaceEducation #simulateMars

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