As Artemis II heads to moon, a small town Michigan teacher is headed to NASA
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As Artemis II heads to moon, a small town Michigan teacher is headed to NASA
Artemis II from Florida, Treasure Coast
Artemis II lifted off April 1, 2026, from the Kennedy Space Center, and spectators across the Treasure Coast watched as Artemis II launched.
ASHLEY – In a few months, Dee Smith will make her way from this small village of about 500 people located north of Lansing, traveling some 1,300 miles south to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas.
Smith will be part of NASA’s LiftOff Summer institute, which provides teachers with information and experiences through speakers, hands-on activities and field investigations that promote space. The 2026 theme is Moon to Mars: A New Era of Discovery, and the institute has been held annually since 1990.
It’s a big mission for a small-town teacher. Ashley Community Schools has 184 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, and roughly a couple dozen teachers.
The program will focus on how NASA, commercial space companies and research institutions are working together to shape the future of deep space exploration, according to the program’s webpage. This year’s annual program will take a look into NASA’s Artemis program, which is working to return humans to the moon for the first time in half a century, and should lay the groundwork for future missions to Mars.
The Artemis II mission, launched around 6:35 p.m. on April 1, is sending four astronauts on a 10-day test flight that will orbit the moon. An Artemis III flight will launch in 2027, and Artemis IV is expected to land on the moon.
Smith said she looks for professional development opportunities that give her hands-on experiences she can bring back to the classroom, both because she says she can learn better that way, but also because it helps get students excited.
“I think it just makes things come to life a little bit more,” she said. “If my students see that I’m excited about it, they can also get excited. It’s catchy and it builds their excitement and they want to dive more and dig more and learn more of the content.”
Smith, who has worked in the district as a teacher since 2011, said she first learned of NASA LiftOff program through a teacher Facebook group. She said she needed to fill out a short application and submit a three- to five-minute video explaining the district and class and how the information could be used in the classroom.
NASA LiftOff is run out of the University of Texas Center for Space Research. After the applicants were chosen, the center reached out to individual states to confirm the travel and programming would be funded through the state’s Space Grant programming.
Smith was originally hired as a physical education teacher, but received her science certification. Since then, she’s completed multiple professional development courses in conservation and ecology, but she thinks having more information on space would be good for both her and her students.
By partaking in hands-on professional development opportunities, Smith said she’s expanding the team of teachers she can bounce ideas off of, which ends up helping students as well.
Each participant in the program was asked to bring 65 small, state-related souvenirs with them to share with other participants, along with a lesson to teach and materials. Smith said she’s thinking Vernors, Better Made potato chips or Petoskey stones.
Each participant also was instructed to bring an extra suitcase with them on the trip so they can bring the shared materials back home.
“Learning about it is great, but having the tools right there in our hands to use is huge,” Smith said.
Smith said she is constantly looking for professional development opportunities, and applies for anything interesting she can find to expand her own knowledge and her network of educators.
“It means a lot,” she said. “I don’t have a large science team in Ashley to bounce ideas off of, but with me going to these professional developments and meeting teachers across the states, I’ve now expanded my team and I can talk to them because we do build really good relationships in just one week. … It just will expand my ability to bring interesting things to the classroom.”
Smith said she’s looking forward to heading to Texas for the trip and is excited to show her students that they can have amazing things happen for them if they put themselves out there and apply for things they might not consider otherwise.
“It still doesn’t feel real,” she said. “I don’t know of anybody who has done this personally, and I just think its a great opportunity for my students because if they don’t get anything else, maybe they will learn that if you just put in a little effort and try, throw your hat in the ring, just maybe, it might be them next time. They just need to know that if they just try they could succeed too.”
Contact Karly Graham at [email protected]. Follow her on X at @KarlyGrahamJrn.
