By ROD ZOOK
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Cosmosphere will benefit from funding from Community Service Tax Credits (CSP) to improve its reach to underserved school students. The program called LaunchNext will benefit 48 underserved school districts in the state of Kansas.
“We’re really excited to be awarded to support our LaunchNext initiative,” Cosmosphere President and CEO Jim Remar said. “This really started back when the pandemic hit in March of 2020 and we had to close our doors. We started to deliver virtual tours and digital opportunities and realized there’s a real need.”
The program will fit all areas of STEM curriculum and will be for all ages of students.
“It’s broken out into the various age groups or grade programs,” Remar said. “We’ve got 12 or 13 modules based on some of the education that we do here. And we're then taking those modules and we’re creating virtual or digital opportunities either through a digital file or a live stream here at the Cosmosphere.”
The museum can do demonstrations and present other items to reinforce what is being taught in the classroom according to Remar.
“More importantly it is the opportunity to bring Cosmosphere STEM education virtually and digitally into the classroom,”Remar said. “That’s really what the tax credits will support. It will allow us to put our LaunchNext program into 48 school districts across the state.”
This year, 26 of the requested 55 projects (constituting 47% of the total funds requested) received CSP funding totaling more than $4 million.
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