Lego is releasing special-edition Women of NASA Lego sets, to honor the contribution of women to NASA's accomplishments. How can you get your daughter interested in STEAM?

LEGO Women of NASA includes four minifigures depicting Nancy Grace Roman, Margaret Hamilton, Sally Ride and Mae Jemison. Each of the three shows the contribution these four women made to science:

  • Nancy Grace Roman’s build features a posable Hubble Space Telescope with authentic details and a projected image of a planetary nebula.
  • Margaret Hamilton’s build features a stack of book elements, representing the books of listings of Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) onboard flight software source code.
  • Sally Ride and Mae Jemison’s build features a launchpad and Space Shuttle Challenger with three removable rocket stages.

The sets will be available on November 1.

How do you set your daughter on the path to getting a Lego in her honor?

STEAM - science, technology, engineering, art, and math - classes are probably part of your child's currciculum in school. You can encourage your daughter to challenge herself by engaging fully with those subjects. Mohawk Valley Community College offers STEAM classes for kids during the winter break and summer vacation, with subjects ranging from Minecraft coding to engineering.

SUNY Polytechnic Institute has a Lego robotics league where kids use Legos to, according to their website, experience the application of real-world STEM concepts and achieve hands-on computer programming and rapid-prototyping experience.

The program also helps kids "cultivate valuable life skills such as brainstorming, creative problem solving, collaboration, teamwork, planning, time and money management, leadership, as well as research and many technical skills."

Cornell Cooperative Extension also offers STEM and robotics clubs through their 4-H program.

If none of these programs are an option, kids can also find books on STEM at their local library, or explore and use their imagination at Utica's Children's Museum or at the MOST Museum in Syracuse.

This generation's children are tomorrow's LEGO figurines.


BONUS VIDEO:

More From Lite 98.7