About the We Want Our Future Initiative

Mission Statement

Inspire students across the country to dream about their future and recognize the importance of science, technology, engineering and math in making these dreams a reality.

Summary

The “We Want Our Future!” Initiative is a nationwide outreach/advocacy project that will challenge students to dream about what they want their future to look like - specifically with respect to space. This project will exclusively promote space exploration as a national priority, avoiding any specific agenda. The Initiative is a “for students, by students” project to call attention to the necessity of space in our collective future.

Objectives:

• Give students the opportunity to dream about their future.
  
• Challenge students to create post-cards depicting their dreams for the future (with respect to space).
  
• Exhibit the value and importance of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)
  
• Demonstrate the ability of space exploration to spark creativity and motivation in students
  
• Unite space and education community behind single goal: space exploration MUST be a national priority

Goal

Assemble 100,000 post cards from all 50 states and territories to demonstrate to the country and our elected leaders that American youth demand their future! As a whole, the postcards will represent a message from youth across the country that they want a future with robust space exploration. Specific cards/response will be posted online. These cards will be used to both publicize the message through the media and to make a statement to elected officials of students’ desire for their future. Ultimately the post-cards will be presented to elected officials.

Logistics

A curriculum/lesson plan will be developed and distributed to schools/groups interested in participating. This curriculum will be centered around an outreach video which will discuss exploration as well as current and past technical achievements related to exploration. The video will discuss the objectives mentioned above and challenge students to dream about the future and depict this future on a postcard. Additional resources could include posters, pictures, additional videos, etc.