Microbes in Microgravity: Animated Educational Videos

Abstract

Despite the fact that space sciences and biology are both subjects known to inspire students in STEM, the field at the intersection of those subjects-- space biology-- is rarely covered in school curricula. Space Biology gains importance by the day, as NASA launches deep-space missions and private companies initiate the launch of their own orbital space stations. For these reasons, we wanted to inspire students to consider studying biology in space by creating short, informational videos to introduce the topic. Our videos, designed for high school and college students, are focused on microbiology and include four distinct topics: the importance of studying microbes in space, the conditions they experience, how microbes experience microgravity, and how these conditions are simulated on Earth. We hope that space microbiologists use these videos to share the basics about their research, and we hope that students become inspired by the ideas presented in them.