Our Space Our Future – Space Careers for everyone!

Our Space Our Future – Space Careers for everyone!

Our Space our Future (OurSpace), an H2020 Project, visions a society that enables and empowers all students, regardless of gender, ethnicity, disability or socio-economic background, to consider a career related to space science as a relevant, attainable and exciting aspiration for their future.

The OurSpace project is designing and running sustainable education and outreach activities, and taking these out into communities, ensuring that underserved audiences are embraced and integrated into the project. These actions aim to foster the interest of young students in space-related topics and show them how space impacts their daily life, even though they might not be aware of it. Working closely with teachers and educators, OurSpace helps them develop attractive interdisciplinary activities that raise their interest in STEAM subjects.

The project encompasses space science, industry and careers globally, but there is a strong focus on planetary sciences since it is one of the first space topics in primary school and is also easily related to the curriculum later on.

There are three main lines of action: school activities, family and community events, and teacher training. Strategies have been outlined by the consortium to make sure we reach students/families/communities that have less opportunities to be exposed to this theme.

Schools are being chosen taking into account indicators of disadvantage status such as FSM, geographical isolation, number of immigrants. Activities are planned to be interdisciplinary,  interactive and inquiry-based, such as doing workshops on space subjects with non-science teachers, having students designing missions collaboratively, designing accessible activities for a range of ages and abilities.

Events are being prepared to make space relevant to family/community daily life - getting role models from the local school or community,  that challenge gender and other stereotypes; having students co-creating activities with family and community; preparing events that explore space science but does not mention it explicitly.

Teachers are the key link to students, families and community, so there is a big emphasis on teacher training. Working closely with teachers, we can support them, prioritize inclusion, co-create inspirational activities, and open a door to the future.

Space is a stable growing sector, that provides many career opportunities for young students. However, few young people consider pursuing a career in a space-related field. We want to inspire our students, families and communities, guiding them towards new paths they didn’t know were available.

OurSpace will engage over 60,000 people across the programme, with a longitudinal evaluation study that explores improved scientific literacy, interest and confidence in space science themes and assesses the impact on space-related and STEM choices and career aspirations of 5,000 directly-participating students across 4 delivery countries.