Orange County science reading challenge winners enjoy special JPL visit

Delaney Martinez was like a kid in a candy store.

In reality, she was a kid in a laboratory when she and 11 other Orange County students took a special VIP tour of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge on June 17.

Delaney, who makes science videos on her YouTube channel “Science With Dee” and has more than 175,000 followers, certainly felt right at home.

“It was so much fun,” the 13-year-old said. “My favorite part was definitely seeing all of the models of the Mars Rovers. Those were super-cool, because they had the very first model to the newest one. It was really cool seeing the comparison.”

The students all earned the trip based on their work in the 2024 Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) Race to Space Reading Challenge.

The reading challenge winners stand at the entrance to the Athenaeum, a private membership club on the campus of Caltech in Pasadena. The Athenaeum opened when Albert Einstein first visited the campus in the winter of 1930.

(Courtesy of Pat Burns)

Founder Pat Burns said she started the Race to Space Reading Challenge in 2021 after the Orange County Children’s Book Festival, which she co-founded, had to go virtual the previous year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“I missed having the kids really engaged,” Burns said. “So I decided to not do a virtual book festival in 2021. I wanted to do a reading challenge, but wanted to be able to encourage STEM. To my surprise, we had more than 1,600 kids register and we had more than 500 finish it.”

She retired from running the children’s book festival following the 2022 edition to devote her time to the reading challenge. In the reading challenge’s three years, more than 4,000 total students have participated.

Divided by age group into four levels, the students chart their STEM book-reading progress on an online platform called Beanstack. Anything they read past the requirements earns them bonus tickets, which they can enter to win things like Zoom calls with astronauts, the trip to JPL, laptop computers, sports tickets or book bundles from publishers.

Ryan Melendez, an incoming seventh grader at the Pegasus School in Huntington Beach, said his teacher Jaime Kunze-Thibeau recommended the program to him.

Students examine their surroundings during a special visit to JPL on June 17.

(Courtesy of Pat Burns)

The trip to JPL was one of the coolest things he did all year, he said.

“My favorite part would be the mission control center,” Ryan said. “There were a bunch of people on computers there. I thought it was pretty cool. That would be a fun job to do.”

After perusing the lab with two scientist tour guides, the students got to go to the California Institute of Technology for a special buffet lunch at the Athenaeum, a private club on the Pasadena school’s campus.

“It’s just stunning inside,” Burns said of the Athenaeum, which opened in 1930 with a formal dinner to celebrate Albert Einstein’s first visit to Caltech. “The architecture, the detailed woodwork, the white tablecloths, the waiters. The kids, about half of them, liked it as much as they liked the tour, which shocked me. They really appreciated and knew they were someplace special.”

Julia Rundzio, an incoming sixth-grade student at Sequoia Elementary School in Westminster, also entered several tickets into the drawing and was selected for the JPL trip. For the next S.T.E.A.M. Race to Space Reading Challenge, she might help promote the program within her school, said Julia’s father, Remi Rundzio.

“It’s an amazing program,” Julia said. “It motivates kids to read books that are not just fiction, but also have science elements and help educate about different things that are going on around us.”

Pat Burns, Orange County Children’s Book Festival co-founder, started the S.T.E.A.M. Race to Space Reading Challenge in 2021.

(File Photo)

Other county students who went on the JPL trip included Emma Zirney and Kenzie Murdie of Lake Forest, Andrew Lee Golden of Garden Grove, Harry Lee of Fullerton, Madelyn Perez of Mission Viejo, Matthew Jay of Irvine, Rinal Jamal of Yorba Linda, Sahas Yalamanchili of Irvine and Sai Sitaraman of Fullerton. The students ranged from elementary age to high school.

Burns said the program has relied on generous donations for the bonus opportunities, as well as funding from grants. This is the first year the students have been able to tour JPL due to previous COVID protocols.

The 2025 edition of the S.T.E.A.M. Race to Space Reading Challenge blasts off Oct. 3, with registration starting Sept. 19. Burns said she’s looking to connect with Rocket Lab to organize a bonus tour, or Vast, another Long Beach-based company that is developing artificial gravity space stations.