Families Flock to Scobee Education Center for Moon Tree Dedication
March 18, 2025
A new addition to the San Antonio College campus traveled more than 270,000 miles to get here.
The tree, a loblolly pine native to East Texas, sprouted from one of hundreds of seeds that traveled into space aboard NASA’s Artemis I mission in 2022. The seeds were germinated upon the spacecraft’s return to Earth. NASA selected SAC as a recipient of an Artemis moon tree seedling.
The tree, named Artie, was planted in front of the Scobee Education Center and was dedicated in a ceremony at the start of the 3rd Annual Head Start Family Day held March 1.
Artie’s new home sits in the Challenger Holt Memorial Garden near a sundial honoring former SAC astronomer and Scobee planetarium coordinator Bob Kelly and memorials to the seven astronauts of the Challenger.
From its new home, the tree will be a symbol of the opportunities for all people as the country returns to the moon and establishes a base there for further space exploration, said Rick Varner, director of the Scobee Education Center.
The sapling arrived on campus in May 2023 and has grown about two feet since then, said Rose Flores, director of Eco Centro, SAC’s center for community and environmental sustainability. The Eco Centro took care of the tree until it was large enough to plant by the Scobee Center.
While loblolly trees are found in San Antonio, the species is native to East Texas, where it thrives in that region’s more acidic soil. In addition to care from Eco Centro, arborists from Bexar Branches Alliance, a local nonprofit, will serve as advisors and assist with Artie’s care. With a little special treatment, the tree should do fine here and add some nice diversity to the trees on campus, Flores said.
“I think it’s really neat to have a diverse population of native trees on campus, especially if you can give meaning to it,” Flores said. “It allows humans to connect with nature a little bit more so that we can take care of it.”
The tree will become an attraction in itself, Varner said, and will help the Scobee Center fulfill its mission to engage and inspire children to pursue STEM careers in the pathways that lead through SAC.
It’s a living symbol of the Artemis mission, a multi-phase endeavor that will create a permanent base on the moon to serve as preparation for traveling further into space, including future missions to Mars.
Valentina Covarrubias, was excited to get a photo of her two-year old son Sultan McBride by the tree. Both Artie and Sultan are about the same age and Sultan is just about a head taller.
She said it will be awesome to explore NASA and other opportunities as he gets older.
“As the tree grows, he also grows. I think that will be something that will always be with him,” said Covarrubias.
She is already planning to return once Sultan is ready to enter college and see how much has changed. “I actually look forward to it.”
-SAC-