Four excited middle school Pascua Yaqui students are over the moon at having been enrolled in Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama this summer. During the week-long program they will meet NASA astronauts and be immersed in simulated astronaut training that could change their lives.

“I’m going to make new friends from places around the world, and see how it looks inside of a real spaceship and eat special astronaut food—pizza inside of a toothpaste tube,” said fifth-grader Serena Martinez. “I’m going to learn about gravity!”

Martinez along with Soledad Ramirez, Saydee Valenzuela and Yanissa Coronad are the lucky Pascua Yaqui students who will be the ambassadors for the Tucson-area tribe that will be sending students to Space Camp for the next five years. All 12 girls in the three cohorts will be shuttling to Space Camp for three years in a row in a five-year program structured to send the girls hurtling toward careers in the STEM fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

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