We’re in 8th grade and dream of walking on Mars. We got help from a former NASA scientist. – USA TODAY

Posted: March 29, 2022 at 12:26 pm

When we expressed our hope to walk on Mars one day, our mentors stepped up, including a former NASA scientist, to set us on the road to the stars.

Elliana Cabellon, Isabella Renaud, Aby Manzueta, Genesis Ponce and Gabriella Rodriguez| Opinion contributors

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When we were in kindergarten two things happened: We became best friends and we fell in love with Mars. From that point on we knew that we wanted to become scientists and make contributions to change the world. We began by pretending that we were scientists and started inventing things. Our love for science, STEMand anything related to outer space stayed with us all the way into middle school.

Thats when our guidance counselor, Dr. John MacDonald, introduced us to the American Student Assistance (ASA) Solve Together Career Exploration Competition. Its a national challenge that has kids work together with an adult to solve a real world problem that might lead to a future career. We signed up right away and decided that our project would be to act as a team of botanists to create a livable colony on Mars. We called ourselvesthe Galactic Girls, and our team of five went on to win first place and $10,000 for our school.

In the beginning, our project to make hydroponic farms went well, but we hit a wall trying to figure out what type of power source to use. Dr. MacDonald knew that we were onto something big and reached out to someone with a connection to NASA.

The next thing we knew, we were meeting (virtually) with a former NASA scientist and current KBR senior vice president of science and space, Mr. Todd May. He taught us a lot about the power source that would help grow crops on Mars, and he also taught us about pushing hard to reach our goals.

Here are some lessons we learned from Dr. MacDonald and Mr. May that we hope will inspire other future scientists, especially girls, in middle school and beyond:

Do what you love. Our love for all things outer space began when we were little, and its something that we have been passionate about ever since. For years, we haddreamed about becoming real life scientists so when the opportunity came, we grabbed it. We got to actually do the scientific work that we plan to do in high school, in collegeand afterward.

Be different. One of the ASA Solve Togethers requirements is that you form a team with up to five students. We knew that two of us were all in and that we needed to carefully pick other team members to ensure our success. We ended up inviting three girls who we knew shared a passion for outer space and had the curiosity, energyand focus to make it happen. We all had different cultural backgrounds and perspectives, which made our overall group strong in at least five ways.

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Make every mentor count. We were lucky because we had seven mentors for this project: Dr. MacDonald, Mr. Mayand the five of us.We learned from ASA that a mentor isnt just someone you go to for help, or whom you wait to find when you are older. Mentors can be anywhere, though sometimes you have to go out of your way to find one even to outer space.Since the competition, lots of kids have turned to us for advice, so weve already become mentors ourselves.

Learn from people and with people. We started this project with lots of information and then worked hard to get the parts that were missing. When we talked to Mr. May, for instance, we did a lot of preparation so we could learn what we really needed to know. We made sure that we listened hard, recording our session with him and playing it over and over to make sure we got the science right. We also learned from each other every single day.

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Mr. May said a lot of things to us, but the one we will always remember is that he couldnt wait to see us walk on Mars. He didnt say it like it was a maybe. He said it because he knew that if we wanted to, and if we worked hard enough, we would eventually get there.

Elliana Cabellon, Isabella Renaud, Aby Manzueta, Genesis Ponce and Gabriella Rodriguez are eighth graders at the Plouffe Academy in Brockton, Massachusetts.The Galactic Girls make up the team that took first place in the 2021 ASA Solve Together Competition.

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We're in 8th grade and dream of walking on Mars. We got help from a former NASA scientist. - USA TODAY

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