A student can enjoy science without imagining a future in science.

A student can successfully complete an engineering activity without thinking of themselves as an engineer.

A student can learn to use technology without believing that they belong in a technology-related career.

This distinction is at the heart of an important question in STEM education:

How do students develop a STEM identity?

STEM identity is more than knowing STEM content. It involves how students see themselves in relation to STEM—whether they feel capable of participating, whether they see themselves as belonging in STEM environments, and whether they can imagine STEM as part of their future.

From observers to participants

One of the principles behind ISS Mimic EDU is that students should have opportunities to experience STEM rather than simply learn about it.

The International Space Station provides a powerful context for this approach.

When students investigate how humans live and work in space, they encounter problems that require multiple STEM disciplines. Life-support systems, robotics, environmental control, water recovery, thermal regulation, scientific experimentation, and communication can become classroom challenges rather than abstract concepts in a textbook.

Students can investigate.

They can build.

They can test.

They can collaborate.

They can troubleshoot.

They can make decisions.

Most importantly, they can experience themselves as people who are capable of doing STEM.

A possible pathway toward STEM identity

Experiences such as these can create opportunities for students to move through several connected dimensions of STEM participation:

Interest

A compelling context—such as human spaceflight—can capture students’ curiosity and invite them into STEM learning.

Participation

Hands-on activities give students an opportunity to move from watching STEM to actually doing it.

Competence

When students successfully use tools, technologies, scientific concepts, and engineering processes, they have opportunities to recognize their own capabilities.

Belonging

Collaborative STEM experiences can help students see themselves as members of a team and as participants in a STEM community.

Agency

Designing, testing, troubleshooting, and making decisions allows students to experience themselves as active contributors rather than simply recipients of information.

Future possibilities

Repeated experiences with STEM can help students begin asking a different question:

Could this be something I do in the future?

That question may be an important step in the development of STEM identity.

Why authentic contexts matter

Space exploration provides an unusual educational advantage.

Students are naturally curious about space, but the value of a space-based STEM experience extends beyond astronomy.

The challenges of human spaceflight are interdisciplinary.

Keeping people alive in space involves biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, mathematics, computing, materials science, environmental science, and technology.

This makes space exploration an authentic context for integrated STEM learning.

ISS Mimic EDU uses the International Space Station as a model for bringing these challenges into educational environments. Students can investigate systems and problems inspired by those encountered in human spaceflight while developing technical and collaborative skills.

The goal is not to turn every student into an astronaut.

The goal is to help students recognize that they can participate in the kinds of thinking, creating, investigating, and problem-solving that make space exploration possible.

STEM identity is built through experiences

STEM identity does not necessarily develop through a single lesson.

It can emerge through repeated experiences.

A student completes an engineering challenge.

Then another.

They learn how to use a new technology.

They troubleshoot something that initially does not work.

They explain their solution to classmates.

They see engineers, scientists, technicians, programmers, and other STEM professionals as people who solve problems rather than distant figures in a textbook.

Over time, these experiences can influence how students think about themselves.

The question changes from:

“Can I do this?”

to:

“I can do this.”

And eventually:

“Maybe I belong here.”

Looking beyond test scores

Traditional educational assessments often ask whether students learned a concept or passed a test.

Those measures remain important.

But STEM education can also ask different questions:

• Do students see themselves participating in STEM?

• Do they recognize the technological skills they are developing?

• Do they feel prepared to solve unfamiliar problems?

• Can they imagine themselves pursuing STEM opportunities?

• Do they recognize that STEM includes many different types of people, roles, and careers?

These indicators can provide another perspective on the impact of STEM education.

ISS Mimic EDU incorporates student surveys addressing STEM career perceptions, technological skills, and 21st-century skills as part of its program evaluation.

A formal analysis of these data is being prepared for peer-reviewed publication.

Building the next generation of STEM participants

The future of STEM depends not only on what students know.

It also depends on whether students believe there is a place for them in STEM.

Educational programs therefore have an opportunity to do more than teach scientific concepts. They can create environments in which students experience curiosity, competence, collaboration, agency, and belonging.

A space station can become more than a subject of study.

It can become a classroom.

And a classroom can become a place where a student begins to imagine a future that previously seemed impossible.

The ultimate question may not be:

“Did the student learn STEM?”

but also:

“Did the student begin to see themselves as someone who can do STEM?”

That is where learning can begin to become identity.

Aymette Medina Jorge, MSW, serves as the ISS Mimic EDU Co-Principal Investigator and Odyssey Academy CTE Teacher, bringing over 17 years of educational experience. She is recognized as an award-winning educator and an ambassador for numerous STEM organizations. Article published August 11, 2026.