What kid doesn't love falling asleep while listening to a captivating story? Not only is it fun, but listening to bedtime stories also help develop kids' literacy, vocabulary, and imagination. But do parents love doing it as much as their children would like to? Well, sadly, not everyone. So, if you're one of those who get bored reading to your kids every night, there are people who can help you out. Believe it or not, those people are real astronauts. Thanks to the Global Space Education Foundation's special project called Story Time from Space, there are astronauts who read popular children's books from space.
Turns out, children can watch astronauts reading educational bedtime stories to them from space
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The project was created by Patricia Tribe, an educator and the former director of education at Space Center Houston, and astronaut Benjamin Alvin Drew Jr.
Image credits: storytimefromspace
The wholesome initiative works in a simple way: the books are delivered to the International Space Station where astronauts are working on various missions, then the astronauts record themselves reading the books and the video is made available on the initiative's webpage and YouTube channel.
The project came to life after Tribe did some research on literacy and science skills in the US.
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She realized that it is necessary to improve both skills for kids, so the educator decided to create something that would help combine both, science and reading, into one and make it more accessible.
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“What better role models to engage kids in science and to engage them in reading? You’re not only looking and listening to the books, you’re looking around the International Space Station,” she told Huff Post.
The first one to read a book for children in-orbit was the co-founder himself. Drew Jr. read a book called Max Goes to the Moon, about the final flight of the space shuttle Discovery.
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Since the project was launched a couple of years ago, many other stories have been told from space which can be accessed on the project's website.
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Only books that provide accurate information regarding STEM are read by the astronauts. “We don’t want to perpetuate any misinformation,” Tribe said.
To make children more knowledgeable in the field, astronauts also perform various science experiments in the Space Station.
Image credits: storytimefromspace
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