A long time ago, Bernard Harris Jr. lived in a village on the Navajo Nation with dreams of flying far away. He wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up. And as a kid in the arid Arizona desert, he used to lie on his back and stare up into the blackness of space salted with stars.
“That's where my initial inspiration came from,” he said, “looking up at those lights and wondering what it would be like to travel among the stars.”
This was in the 1960s, a time when Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about dreams and Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Harris knew he had to master math and science here on Earth before he could see his dreams take off.
He studied hard, ultimately earning his doctorate in medicine from Texas Tech University School of Medicine. In 1990, he was selected by NASA and he became an astronaut one year later.
Now 56, Harris works to give that same boost to students across the country, using his story to underscore the significance of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) in schools.
It takes a village
In 1998, Harris created The Harris Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Houston that supports STEM education for America's youth. 
His foundation partnered with the ExxonMobil Foundation to create the ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camps, a free academic program held at 23 colleges and universities nationwide that focuses on STEM. Even though the camp was making a positive difference, Harris said that the larger community was left out.
“We were not doing anything for the parents or to address the global issue in education in terms of the system itself,” he said. “This nation needs to do something or our future is in jeopardy.”
The community, he said, would need to play a critical role to demand that students are given stronger math and science programs and teachers receive better training in STEM subjects. In 2007, Harris started the Dream Tour, a motivational program with a goal to reach more than 1 million students, teachers and parents by 2010. The program includes a concert with music, videos and STEM experts, and a shuttle simulation led by Harris.
