When Kae-Lee Rapozo grows up, she wants to become a lawyer.
“I want to help people,” the Waiakeawaena Elementary School fourth-grader said. “Like (helping) when someone gets hurt because of somebody else.”
On Tuesday, Kae-Lee, 9, was mulling a legal career at a place seemingly unlikely to employ attorneys — NASA.
Representatives from the California-based NASA Ames Research Center were in Hilo, telling Kae-Lee and her roughly 20 classmates how the space agency employs people from all sorts of occupations: marine biologists, geologists, plant scientists — even artists.
“NASA needs all kinds of people,” Jennifer Baer, a NASA graphic artist, told the room of wide-eyed keiki, describing the various types of materials she designs and illustrates for her job.
The hourlong classroom visit was among several happening islandwide this week as part of the 13th annual Journey Through the Universe Week. The program, headed by the Gemini Observatory, brings together more than 70 astronomers and educators who lead classroom visits, planetarium shows and career panels for high school students — to name a few.
Activities run throughout the year, Gemini spokeswoman Janice Harvey said, but a large concentration of them are happening this week.
This year, Journey Through the Universe hopes to reach more than 8,000 students, Harvey said. Ultimately, it wants to inspire students to consider careers in astronomy and related fields.
Program alum Devin Chu, a Hilo High School graduate, helped conduct some of the classroom visits this week. Chu completed an astrophysics degree at Dartmouth University in New Hampshire and now is working on a doctorate degree at the University of California at Los Angeles.
“(Our goal for the students) is exactly what happened to Devin Chu,” Harvey said. “He was exposed to the (program), and we showed him different pathways. We also want to show these kids careers happening at the observatory.”
“I don’t think children always understand how many job opportunities there are out there and how they can be anything they want to be,” Harvey added. “I think the main thing Journey does, is it inspires kids.”
The program wants to continue reaching more students in the future, particularly in Kona-area schools, Harvey said. Activities this year are happening at schools in Hilo, Honokaa, Waimea and Paauilo. Journey Through the Universe also led a workshop for teachers in the Ka‘u-Keaau-Pahoa Complex Area.
Elementary and early teen years are a prime time to reach kids — particularly young girls — before “they’ve decided they can’t do something,” said Yvonne Pendleton, a NASA astrophysicist who joined Baer on Tuesday to present to the Waiakeawaena students.
“I want to get to them before they get to an age where they have to make a decision between some social norm and science,” said Pendleton, who also is director of the NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute. “I know I struggled with that — I used to wrap my textbooks in brown paper because I didn’t want people in high school to see I was taking third-year chemistry. I wanted to be with the cool kids. But it shouldn’t be that hard. It should be something where, if you are who you are, you can like that stuff and it can all work.”
Fourth-grader Kallen Fujioka said he already was considering a career as an astronaut or a pilot. He said he enjoyed learning about different occupations at NASA and liked a refresher on subjects with which he already was familiar — the atmosphere, asteroid belts and Pluto, to name a few.
“I like learning about space, it’s really interesting,” Kallen said. “I think it’d be pretty cool to work at NASA.”
Email Kirsten Johnson at kjohnson@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
