Yanet Melinda Báñez Rojas, fifth year high school student in the High Performance College (COAR) Lima Provinces, has been selected from more than 1,600 girls for the “She is an Astronaut” program of the She is foundation. Yanet will be part of the Peruvian group that will visit the NASA Space Center in Houston, United States.
The Minister of Education, Morgan Quero, congratulated Yanet and the other Peruvian girls chosen for this experience at NASA. She encouraged them to continue preparing to become future innovative professionals, researchers and leaders in their respective fields.
For a period of three months, the students will participate in a hybrid educational program, with virtual classes on empowerment and social entrepreneurship, and will attend a webinar with astronauts from the Space Center, among other activities.
According to the unique digital platform of the Peruvian State, once the virtual stage is over, the students will travel for a week to the NASA Space Center, the largest space operations center in the world. There they will participate in talks about robotics, programming, rocket construction, mission organization and teamwork, lunar habitat creation, flight direction and space travel simulation.
As part of their activities, they will develop a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) and social innovation entrepreneurship project to solve a problem in their communities.
“I have been selected thanks to the education we receive at COAR, where we are prepared to be agents of change. “I am excited about the idea of, in the future, being part of the NASA team as an aerospace engineer,” said Yanet.
It is necessary to clarify that the “She is an Astronaut” program aims to empower young women through education and inspiration, bringing them closer to science and technology and promoting their development as future leaders in these fields.
