DOUGLAS It wasn't a typical Monday afternoon at Douglas Intermediate Elementary School it was actually a pretty extraordinary day by most schools' standards.

In the school's auditorium, kids in Grades 6-8 were talking in real time with astronauts over 200 miles above the Earth's surface on the international space station and launching rockets with a Raytheon engineer in the parking lot afterward.

That was following a visit by students Friday to Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where they got a chance to meet astronaut Stephen G. Bowen, who was visiting for an event there.

Eighth-grader Kylie M. Blake's question for one of the space station's astronauts was one of 20 chosen by teachers out of 450 questions gathered from students to ask the astronauts live. The transmission was possible via a live downlink hooked up to a satellite set up in the parking area in front of the school.

"It was the best thing that ever happened in my life," the 14-year-old aspiring astronomer said. "Getting that close at this age in my life was beyond my dreams."

Kylie got to ask Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, how he became Minnesota teen Abigail Harrison's mentor and what it was like to have her act as his earthbound liaison.

"It motivates me that I can go as far as her," Kylie said.

She said she also liked seeing American astronaut Karen Nyberg's long hair float freely in zero-gravity on the video stream. (One student asked her how she washed it on the space station.) Astronaut Chris Cassidy from Salem also chatted with students from the space station.

Principal Beverly Bachelder said the event was part of Space Week at the school, an effort to get kids more excited about STEM fields.

"There is a particular push in Douglas," Ms. Bachelder said. "Estimates indicate that there will be 2.4 million jobs created in STEM fields in the U.S. by 2018, but only 25 percent of high school students today complete basic math and engineering work. It is a real issue if we're going to stay competitive as a nation."

Read more:

Douglas students get portal to space station