Dive Brief:

• Ardusat, a Salt Lake City company aiming to "make space accessible for students," landed $1 million in a seed funding round from investors including Space Florida, Fresco Capital, and partner company Spire.
• The funding will go toward an "Experiment Platform" where data collected from its satellites during classroom experiments can be published for the public.
• Through Ardusat's "Space Kits," students can use satellites that hitch a ride into space with bigger satellites to collect data ranging from greenhouse gas concentrations to UV light levels, and observe changes in things like lake surface area in regions affected by droughts, EdSurge reports.

Dive Insight:

If you're trying to get students in grades 8-12 interested in STEM fields, space is probably the coolest place to start. It's vast, mysterious, and has inspired scientific discovery in humans for centuries.

Ardusat already works with 44 schools that incorporate its Space Kits into science classrooms or after-school clubs, and one kit costs $150  — or you can get seven, in a "Classroom Launch Pack," for $2,500. There are also 25 lesson plans available for the kits, one of which involves having students observe atmospheric conditions to make their own forecasts to compare with those of meteorologists.

Needless to say, this kind of hands-on application of scientific processes is extremely beneficial when it comes to acquainting students with the practical application of theories that can sometimes seem more difficult or complicated on paper.