NASA and Khan Academy have teamed up to increase interest in STEM

YouTube education sensation the Khan Academy debuted a series of tutorials on astronomy and space exploration made in collaboration with NASA Thursday. The announcement at the fourth annual White House Science Fair made it clear that the new tutorials are meant to generate more interest in science, technology, engineering and math (also known as STEM) education. The tutorials on Khan Academy, a non-profit, educational website, are divided into three different sections. Each section is intended to acquaint the user with different aspects of space, and NASA’s understanding and exploration of it — from teaching users about the different protocols NASA uses to explaining the challenges of Mars exploration. The collaboration between NASA and Khan Academy began last summer, when NASA provided Khan Academy with the information to create the educational content. Interactive games and simulations — change the different proposed early models of the solar system, try to land a spacecraft on Mars — were made to allow the student to dig deeper.