On March 18, 2026, students, staff, and community members gathered at Mary W. Jackson Elementary School in Hampton, Virginia, to celebrate the formal dedication of an Artemis Moon Tree on the school's campus. The event was hosted in partnership with NASA's Langley Research Center, which is located in the same city.

The tree — a loblolly pine — had already been planted months before the dedication ceremony, meaning it was actively growing on school grounds prior to the official celebration. The dedication marks a symbolic connection between the next generation of students and NASA's ongoing Artemis lunar exploration program.

Artemis Moon Trees are grown from seeds that traveled to the Moon's vicinity aboard NASA's Artemis I mission, which launched in November 2022. The program is a modern tribute to the original Moon Trees project from the Apollo era, when hundreds of seeds were carried into lunar orbit during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971.

The school itself is named in honor of Mary W. Jackson, a pioneering NASA mathematician and engineer who became the agency's first Black female aeronautical engineer. Jackson worked at Langley Research Center for decades and was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2019. She was also one of the key figures celebrated in the 2016 film 'Hidden Figures.'

The dedication represents a convergence of historical legacy and future exploration, placing a living artifact of space travel at a school that already honors one of NASA's most significant contributors.

Source: NASA Science Activation, https://science.nasa.gov/learning-resources/science-activation/artemis-moon-tree-dedicated-in-honor-of-mary-w-jackson/

Note: This article is based on a NASA public communications release. No independent peer-reviewed methodology applies to this event coverage. Details beyond what are contained in the source summary were not available at time of publication.