Oceans to Orbits Review: The STEM Immersion Expedition a Teacher Wishes She’d Had

“The program that I wish I had as a student when I was a kid”

The interview · about an 8-minute read · or watch the clips

Jamica Craig has taught science and math for more than a decade, most recently in Brooklyn, New York, and has judged the Educators Pick Best of STEM® Awards for years. A certified classroom teacher and a former Floridian, she knew the institutions behind Oceans to Orbits before she opened the entry. She scored the program 9 out of 10 on the educator Net Promoter Score. In August 2026 she sat down on camera with Daylene Long, founder of Educators Pick Best of STEM, and Annie Galvin Teich, lead judge, to talk about what a STEM immersion expedition does that a classroom cannot.

Craig judged the entry: its program description, photos, lesson plans, and a conversation with its developers. She did not travel on the expedition. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

First impressions

Daylene Long: Jamica, what was your first impression of Oceans to Orbits? What made it stand out among the products you’ve reviewed, and why would you recommend it to a colleague?

Jamica Craig: To me, Oceans to Orbits is the program that I wish I had as a student when I was a kid. I love that it’s a structured bridge between what students learn in the classroom and what STEM career pathways actually look like day to day. Upon first look, Oceans to Orbits built these partnerships with these great institutions. As a former Floridian myself, I knew about these places, and I was immediately drawn into the photos and the descriptions of what students are doing. It is not just a stop that you’re on. Students are really immersed in these programs and learning. They’re not just visiting these places, they’re actually seeing behind the scenes, and then sitting across from faculty and current students. So it doesn’t just show STEM to students, it actually allows them to engage with it over the course of the program.

Long: Which institutions do they use for the CTE and career portions?

Craig: They partner with Eckerd College, they partner with Embry-Riddle, and they partner with Mote, for a few of the big partnerships. They also visit the Kennedy Space Center. All well-known, very high-ranked institutions in Florida.

The moment of discovery

Annie Galvin Teich: When you did your evaluation, you wrote that programs like Oceans to Orbits reach students who may not even fathom all the careers that exist in the STEM fields. What does that moment of discovery look like for a middle schooler or a high schooler?

Craig: You can’t choose a path that you don’t know exists. For a lot of middle school and high school students, STEM gets reduced to a handful of jobs, may that be a doctor, an engineer, a scientist in a lab coat, which are all great pathways, but there’s so much more out there that they can experience. The Oceans to Orbits program really allows them to be standing in a real lab or on a launch pad tour, or watching someone do a job that they may not even know existed. And then something clicks for them. It’s not abstract anymore. I’ve seen firsthand how powerful this is. I myself went into a STEM field because of experiences like this.

“You can’t choose a path that you don’t know exists.”Jamica Craig, on why career discovery has to happen somewhere real

In the room where the work happens

Teich: When students are in these hands-on experiences, what do they gain that they can’t get from learning about these opportunities in a classroom?

Craig: The Oceans to Orbits program really provides this firsthand experience. A classroom or a screen can teach a student a concept, they can provide a simulation of that, but nothing compares to being in the room where the work actually happens. At Mote, the students aren’t just observing, they’re rotating through real lab workshops and getting introduced to spaces like the Live Coral Lab and the Veterinary Clinic, working alongside research students or staff who have PhDs in that field. At Kennedy Space Center, they’re touring the Vehicle Assembly Building or the behind-the-scenes bus tour, sitting across from a veteran astronaut, able to answer the questions that they have in person. That’s not a lesson. That’s an experience for a student. It’s very tactile and social, and it sticks with a student in a way that a screen won’t.

Teich: For middle school students, or even first- or second-year high school students, college is still a little ways off. How does the college component affect them?

Craig: The gap between being in high school or middle school and a career starts to close the moment it becomes a real conversation. At Eckerd College, the students hear directly from students what the prerequisites are that they actually need to apply to a marine science program or biochemistry or biology. At Embry-Riddle, they’re meeting grad students who are demonstrating their own research on drone technology or flying cars. So students can see exactly where the degree lands. Talking to a current college student and coming face to face with faculty makes the path feel reachable, makes it feel real, and maybe even less intimidating and more attainable for them. Even years out from applying, the face-to-face exposure really removes a ‘who am I supposed to be’ kind of gap that can exist between high school and a career, especially hearing it from someone closer to their age range.

“Nothing compares to being in the room where the work actually happens.”Jamica Craig, on the Mote Science Education Aquarium, Kennedy Space Center, and what a screen can’t do

Subjects that work together

Teich: One of the things you highlighted in your evaluation was the interdisciplinary nature of the program: science, math, and social studies working together. Where did you see that most clearly?

Craig: Real problems don’t stay inside one subject, and the Oceans to Orbits program doesn’t pretend that they do. This came through most clearly for me in how the campus and field partnerships were framed. Eckerd College’s marine science program, paired with its engineering partnership with Columbia University, shows students that ocean conservation isn’t just a science question. It touches policy. It touches math and how communities are affected. Another example was at the Daytona International Speedway, where mechanical and design engineering get tied directly to the math behind how the world’s fastest vehicles actually work. Oceans to Orbits really allows students to see that the subjects they’re studying separately in school actually work together in the field.

Back to the classroom

Teich: How could a teacher use the pre-trip and post-trip lessons to frame the experience and evaluate what students learned?

Craig: What I really saw was that the Oceans to Orbits experience wasn’t just a fun time or a great memory. It was a great memory with a plan attached. The pre-trip lessons and activities could give students the background and the vocabulary, so they’re not walking in cold. They already have a context for what they’re about to see. And the post-trip lessons really bring it back to the classroom and tie it directly to the NGSS standards, so the teacher isn’t scrambling to make it seem relevant and thread the needle for them. It’s already there. As a teacher, I could use the pre-trip work to set expectations, to teach the vocabulary, to preload some content, and then use the post-trip work to have students reflect on what they saw and connect it back to the standards they’ve been responsible for learning throughout the year.

“It was a great memory with a plan attached.”Jamica Craig, on the pre- and post-trip lessons

Who benefits most

Teich: Which students, schools, or programs would you most want to see on one of these expeditions? Who benefits the most?

Craig: I believe the students who would benefit most from the Oceans to Orbits program are the ones who’ve never been shown what’s possible, the ones who may not have a STEM professional in their family or in their community to point them the way, the ones who are curious but haven’t been given a concrete next step. This program allows those students to gain the most because it’s a level of access. It’s real labs, it’s real professionals, it’s real college campuses. That usually isn’t something they have access to on their own. Those are exactly the students that the Oceans to Orbits program, I feel, was built to reach.

What earns a 9

Teich: You gave Oceans to Orbits a 9 out of 10. What earns a score like that from you? And what would you tell a colleague who was trying to decide whether to use Oceans to Orbits with their students?

Craig: The score comes from a combination of authenticity and structure. This isn’t a simulated experience. Students are in real facilities with real professionals, real college students, moving through marine science, aerospace, engineering, and conservation. And it’s all backed by lesson plans that tie back to what teachers are already required to teach. If a colleague asked me whether they should bring their students, I would tell them without hesitation, this is one of the strongest out-of-school STEM experiences that I’ve reviewed in a while. And the value isn’t just the trip, it’s in what students can bring back with them.

“This is one of the strongest out-of-school STEM experiences that I’ve reviewed in a while.”Jamica Craig, on what she’d tell a colleague

What the developers told her

Teich: I’m ready to volunteer as a chaperone. Is there anything else you’d like to share about Oceans to Orbits that we haven’t asked?

Craig: Speaking to the developers over at Oceans to Orbits, it really showed me that they really do want to hear from teachers. This experience is for students, of course, but they really are receptive to feedback and receptive to the training provided for teachers, and to really support them in making this a great experience. That stuck out and touched me a lot. It can feel very daunting as an educator to see something new and think, how am I going to wrangle all this together for my students. But it showed me that they are there to support the teachers with the different lesson plans, and even partnering with teachers to help them build out their program.

The teacher behind the review

Craig closed with a word about her own classroom.

Craig: I have been an educator for well over a decade. I am rooted in the STEM subjects of math and science. I was a science educator as well as a math educator, so I thoroughly enjoy the subjects and bringing them to life for my students. Some of the challenges that I’m seeing in schools now is this tension of wanting to provide high quality instructional materials to students and give them great experiences, and not feeling like you know where to even start. So it’s great to learn about programs like Oceans to Orbits that provide those experiences for students and have done the legwork for you. Then you can really focus on providing great teaching and learning experiences for your students in the classroom.

Teich: You’ve given both a written and, today, a verbal analysis of what Oceans to Orbits offers students. This is our fifth year, and we couldn’t do it without you.

Craig: It’s truly a joy, honestly.

Oceans to Orbits is a 2-, 3-, or 4-day STEM immersion expedition for middle and high school students, hosted at the Mote Science Education Aquarium (Sarasota, FL) and Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral, FL), with campus visits to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Eckerd College. Pricing and booking: contact Oceans to Orbits at www.OceansToOrbits.org. Educator judges rate Best of STEM entries on a Net Promoter Score scale; scores are reported exactly as submitted.