{"id":224864,"date":"2025-11-04T15:21:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T01:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=224864"},"modified":"2025-11-05T12:58:48","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T22:58:48","slug":"lacy-veach-day-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/11\/04\/lacy-veach-day-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying high, diving deep at Astronaut Lacy Veach Day of Discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\"kids<\/p>\n

The University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa helped inspire hundreds of keiki and community members at the 24th annual Astronaut Lacy Veach Day of Discovery<\/a> on October 19. Hosted by the Hawai\u02bb<\/span> Space Grant Consortium<\/a> (HSGC<\/abbr>) in partnership with UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s Institute for Astronomy<\/a> and Hawaiian Electric, the free STEM<\/abbr> event engaged attendees with hands-on activities and workshops highlighting space exploration, Earth science, biology, oceanography, rocketry, robotics and coding.<\/p>\n

\"people<\/p>\n

\u201cThis event is all about inspiring Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s students to dream big\u2014just like Lacy did,\u201d said Adria Fung, event coordinator and robotics education specialist with HSGC<\/abbr> in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology<\/a> (SOEST<\/abbr>). \u201cHe grew up right here in Honolulu, had a huge dream, and quite literally chased the stars. We want our students to see that even if their dreams feel far away, they can reach them by staying curious and never being afraid to explore. Lacy Veach Day celebrates discovery and the spirit of lifelong learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robots, fossils, rockets and more<\/h2>\n

This year featured 36 hands-on activities and displays led by more than 30 organizations including student groups from UH<\/abbr>, community organizations and industry professionals. They featured hands-on learning in the fields of robotics, fossils, marine biology, rocketry, Hawaiian voyaging, cube satellites, architecture, pilot simulation, microscopes and more. Workshops offered opportunities to learn about indoor drones, robotics, telescopes, hybrid cars and meteorites.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was Aiea Intermediate School robotics team’s first Lacy Veach Day and the students had a real blast,\u201d said Pete Miller, robotics coach at Aiea Intermediate School. \u201cWe brought several robots for the public to play around with in the robotics arena, getting coaching from our team members as needed, plus my students were able to visit the other exhibits\u2013the most popular were the planetarium, the drone display and several of the UH<\/abbr> engineering and science exhibits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Partnerships propel the event<\/h2>\n

\"person<\/p>\n

Veach Day provides a unique opportunity for pre-service teachers to learn from other organizations about how they bring STEM<\/abbr> to life, and build connections that might one day show up in their own classrooms.<\/p>\n

\u201cVolunteering at Lacy Veach Day was a valuable and rewarding experience for pre-service teachers in our teacher preparation program,\u201d said Stacy George, faculty member at UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa College of Education. \u201cIt provided my students with a rare opportunity to engage in community outreach, network with science organizations, interact with families, and even develop their own interest in science.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information, see SOEST<\/abbr>\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UH<\/abbr> Mānoa helped inspire hundreds of keiki and community members at the 24th annual Astronaut Lacy Veach Day of Discovery on October 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":224793,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[34,871,35,1466,92,313,9],"class_list":["post-224864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-astronomy","tag-hawaii-space-grant-consortium","tag-institute-for-astronomy","tag-manoa-enhancing-student-success","tag-school-of-ocean-and-earth-science-and-technology","tag-stem","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/manoa-soest-veach-day-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224864"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224977,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224864\/revisions\/224977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}