Research has shown that students lose ground in their academic dexterity over the summer, particularly in reading, math, and verbal skills. Without the daily routine of the classroom and the repetition of concepts, students lose an average of one to two months’ learning over the summer. Teachers and education experts refer to this as “summer brain drain,” and find themselves spending a good chunk of time reviewing or re-teaching material to their students once school starts up again in September. To help stem the flow of information loss, it’s important that kids keep thinking, reading, and writing throughout the summer.

This summer marks the end of an era.

Mission STS-135 will be the final mission for NASA’s space shuttle program, an innovative project that made its first official launch in 1981. The idea for a reusable spacecraft was tossed around back in the 1960s, and in 1972, President Richard Nixon announced that NASA would begin work on the space shuttle program. To date, there have been 134 missions, with one left to go. Of those missions, two ended in disaster. The losses of the Challenger and Columbia shuttles, with their entire crews, are tragedies that are still etched in the memories of many people worldwide. The Challenger mission, with teacher Christa McAuliffe aboard, was particularly difficult for many students to emotionally process.