The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) was launched by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education(NCESSE). Designed as a model U.S. national Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education initiative, the program gives typically 300+ students across a participating community the ability to design and propose real microgravity experiments to fly in low Earth orbit (experiments conducted in a “weightless” environment), first aboard the final flights of the Space Shuttle in 2011, and then on the International Space Station (ISS) – America’s newest National Laboratory.