Ready for liftoff
Student experiment heads to space.
[Photo supplied]
This is the first time MCPS has participated in SSEP. The rocket, which is scheduled to blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, will carry the East SSEP science investigation to the International Space Station (ISS).
Dr. N.H. Jones students Anakan Keithan Gopalan and Aarya Jackson Seevaratnam designed and implemented the chosen experiment. The students’ teacher, Lisa Fontaine Dorsey, is the SSEP community project director at the school. North Marion High School students Jacob Ridinger and Dalton Gentilman, under the guidance of their teacher, Dee Reedy, are also part of the experiment team.
Dorsey said in the press release that she sees the transformative power of this project as a benefit for both students and educators.
“As an educator, the [SSEP] was the most challenging and rewarding educational project I have ever had the privilege of experiencing,” she said, adding she hopes to expand the program next school year.
The title of the chosen experiment is “What is the effect of microgravity on the amount of ethanol produced by yeast fermentation?” The experiment will spend at least six to eight weeks in orbit before returning to Dr. N.H. Jones Elementary, where students will then complete a final analysis.
As controls, those students will mimic these same procedures in ground experiments alongside their North Marion High School counterparts for comparison with their control samples.
In addition to the science experiment, art students throughout MCPS are working on mission patch designs to accompany the science experiment to the ISS. A selection board will review those submissions and select two patch designs for the flight.
According to the release, the SSEP is a program of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in the U.S. and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Educational internationally. It is enabled through a strategic partnership with Nanoracks LLC., which is working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory.
Last fall, the SSEP invited students across the nation to write competitive research proposals to teste the effect of microgravity and have those proposals vetted by a two-step review board.
As part of a multi-school effort, students at Dr. N.H. Jones Elementary, Howard Middle, Horizon Academy at Marion Oaks and Reddick-Collier Elementary Schools worked in groups developing their experiments and presenting their proposals to a local review board. The board identified the top-three proposals, which were sent to the SSEP National Step 2 Review board where the flight experiment was chosen.
Each experiment had to follow strict constraints, including a requirement that it fit into a very small container called a Fluid Mixing Enclosure (FME).
“One of the highlights of the program was making connections with scientists, researchers and educators across the country and around the world,” said Dorsey. “We formed a partnership with local high school students and worked as lab partners to conduct further testing on the spaceflight experiment.”
“We didn’t just experience the scientific method, we lived it,” she added.
For updates on SSEP Mission 16, visit http:/ssep.ncesse.org/ssep-in-the-news/in-the-news-ssep-mission-16-to-iss/. For more information on the SSEP project, contact Sarah Tierney, Ed. D., coordinator of School Choice, at [email protected] or (352) 236-0566.
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