The day was June 16th, 1963 and Valentina Tereshokova had just flown on the historic Vostok VI spacecraft flight, marking the entry of women into the Space Age. This pioneering woman became the first to orbit the Earth and, to this day, the only woman to perform a solo spaceflight. In her honour, InnovaSpace has established Project Valentina, using the medium of space science to motivate girls and young women to pursue careers in the STEM areas.
The word Valentina also carries a significance closely aligned to Tereshokova herself, and the central theme of the project, since it derives from the term Valente, meaning someone who does not fear danger, has a fighting spirit, is fearless and courageous. |
Project Valentina combines the expertise gained from InnovaSpace's other educational initiatives, such as the Kids2Mars missions and Astronaut for a Day project, among others, with the participation and experience of leading female role models from the world of science. The project involves the following activities, conducted in isolation or combination:
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Seeing the fantastic work being done in New York by EDsnaps Founder Susanne Cappendijk, better known as Dr. C, the InnovaSpace team and Valentina hope to be able to join her and her students in 2020 for a Summer of Space STEAM! More news to follow... Sadly this event is cancelled due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak |