Soon, children from School District 43 (SD43) will look up into the night sky and know that a science experiment designed by their classmates is orbiting around the earth. Local students will spend the upcoming months learning about micro-gravity science – and then have the chance to have their own research experiment performed by real astronauts on the International Space Station.
The National Centre for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) sponsors the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP), and SD43 is the only Canadian school district that will contribute to Mission 16. The SSEP initially took place on the last flights of the U.S. Space Shuttle Program, but now the experiments are conducted on the International Space Station (ISS) – America’s newest National Laboratory.
Over the previous 15 missions, 191 communities joined the SSEP, representing 43 US states, five Canadian provinces, and the country of Brazil. More than 25,000 experimental proposals have been suggested by students since the program began 12 years ago, and 320 of those experiments travelled to space. SD43 science experiments have been to the International Space Station before, in 2017, when Riverside Secondary School students Alexa Durand and Brenda Shen had their proposal chosen to be part of Mission 11. Their experiment on the curing rate of fly ash concrete in a weightless environment was selected from over 200 proposals, and taken up to space on SSEP Mission 11. This year’s program kicked off in School District 43 on September 16th , with more than 2000 students participating, and will run for nine weeks.
Real-world experimental design will allow students to experience STEM critical thinking, limited-resource management, and the challenge of refining their proposals. At participating schools, students in Grade 4/5 to Grade 12 will learn from teachers about microgravity experiments. Their studies will include understanding the nature of experiments in space and learning about the broad range of science that can be conducted by astronauts on the ISS. At the core of the program is the question, “What physical, chemical, or biological system would I like to explore with gravity seemingly turned off for a period of time, as a means of assessing the role of gravity in that system?”
Concentrating on subjects like seed germination, crystal growth, physiology and life cycles of microorganisms, cell biology and growth, food studies, and studies of micro-aquatic life, classes will study the approach to designing microgravity experiments. With such a broad range of qualifying topics, the students’ learning will be relevant to the SSEP project, and also to the scientific topics they study in class.
The students must face the further challenge of translating their big ideas into a very small, lightweight design, as payload limitations are a real-world dimension of space experimentation. Successful teams will eventually work with scientists and university students from Simon Fraser University (SFU) to refine experiment proposals that will be submitted for evaluation to the National Centre for Earth and Space Science Education.
Quoted in the SD43 press release, Dr. Paul Kench, Dean of Science at SFU said, “Once again, several of our senior scientists and graduate students will be assisting SD43 students in this standout competition. We are pleased to nurture and support science education at every level and look forward to helping these young students bring their imaginative and scientific skills to life."
Although not every experiment can be chosen to go into space, every proposal requires a “ground truth” – the control experiment performed on Earth. For the successful experiment, comparing the data from space and the data from Earth is an important part of measuring the effect of gravity on their research. Even without their material going to space, all teams can perform their ground truth experiments, and hypothesize about the effects of microgravity on their results.
Proposals will be judged by age-appropriate criteria, so every project has a chance at being selected, and three finalist designs will be sent from the district to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., where they will be evaluated at a meeting of the SSEP National Step 2 Review Board. One experiment will be selected from each participating community. The winning proposal will be chosen on December 16, 2021, and the team that designed the winning experiment will be given a tiny mini-laboratory, a cylinder smaller than a tube of toothpaste. The mini-lab students receive is the same as the ones used by professional research communities in government, academia, and industry.
After they have prepped and carefully packaged their experiment, their mini-lab will be submitted to NASA to undergo a months-long formal flight safety review at Johnson Space Center. Students will be given a chance to refine their experiment before the launch, which is planned for late spring of 2022, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Their experiments will share the payload box with mini-labs containing experiments from the professional research community, and will travel on a SpaceX rocket as part of the SSEP Mission 16 payload to the ISS.
Experiments will be conducted on the ISS in low-earth orbit, with data to be transmitted back to SD43, to be analyzed by the students as part of their project. After a 4 to 6 week stay in orbit, the physical experiment itself will come back down to earth on another rocket, and be sent back to the student team. In summer of 2022, the National Conference at Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC, will provide student teams an opportunity to present their results at a meeting of their peers.
Although only students in Grades 5 to 12 can contribute to the experimental design, students from kindergarten up can contribute a possible design for the Mission Patch that could also fly on the ISS.
This year, funding for the program has been provided by the SD43 Foundation, Simon Fraser University and Magellan Aerospace. Canadian access to the program has been facilitated by the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.
More information on this program can be found at the SD43 website and the National Centre for Earth and Space Science Education site.
The National Centre for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) sponsors the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP), and SD43 is the only Canadian school district that will contribute to Mission 16. The SSEP initially took place on the last flights of the U.S. Space Shuttle Program, but now the experiments are conducted on the International Space Station (ISS) – America’s newest National Laboratory.
Over the previous 15 missions, 191 communities joined the SSEP, representing 43 US states, five Canadian provinces, and the country of Brazil. More than 25,000 experimental proposals have been suggested by students since the program began 12 years ago, and 320 of those experiments travelled to space. SD43 science experiments have been to the International Space Station before, in 2017, when Riverside Secondary School students Alexa Durand and Brenda Shen had their proposal chosen to be part of Mission 11. Their experiment on the curing rate of fly ash concrete in a weightless environment was selected from over 200 proposals, and taken up to space on SSEP Mission 11. This year’s program kicked off in School District 43 on September 16th , with more than 2000 students participating, and will run for nine weeks.
Real-world experimental design will allow students to experience STEM critical thinking, limited-resource management, and the challenge of refining their proposals. At participating schools, students in Grade 4/5 to Grade 12 will learn from teachers about microgravity experiments. Their studies will include understanding the nature of experiments in space and learning about the broad range of science that can be conducted by astronauts on the ISS. At the core of the program is the question, “What physical, chemical, or biological system would I like to explore with gravity seemingly turned off for a period of time, as a means of assessing the role of gravity in that system?”
Concentrating on subjects like seed germination, crystal growth, physiology and life cycles of microorganisms, cell biology and growth, food studies, and studies of micro-aquatic life, classes will study the approach to designing microgravity experiments. With such a broad range of qualifying topics, the students’ learning will be relevant to the SSEP project, and also to the scientific topics they study in class.
The students must face the further challenge of translating their big ideas into a very small, lightweight design, as payload limitations are a real-world dimension of space experimentation. Successful teams will eventually work with scientists and university students from Simon Fraser University (SFU) to refine experiment proposals that will be submitted for evaluation to the National Centre for Earth and Space Science Education.
Quoted in the SD43 press release, Dr. Paul Kench, Dean of Science at SFU said, “Once again, several of our senior scientists and graduate students will be assisting SD43 students in this standout competition. We are pleased to nurture and support science education at every level and look forward to helping these young students bring their imaginative and scientific skills to life."
Although not every experiment can be chosen to go into space, every proposal requires a “ground truth” – the control experiment performed on Earth. For the successful experiment, comparing the data from space and the data from Earth is an important part of measuring the effect of gravity on their research. Even without their material going to space, all teams can perform their ground truth experiments, and hypothesize about the effects of microgravity on their results.
Proposals will be judged by age-appropriate criteria, so every project has a chance at being selected, and three finalist designs will be sent from the district to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., where they will be evaluated at a meeting of the SSEP National Step 2 Review Board. One experiment will be selected from each participating community. The winning proposal will be chosen on December 16, 2021, and the team that designed the winning experiment will be given a tiny mini-laboratory, a cylinder smaller than a tube of toothpaste. The mini-lab students receive is the same as the ones used by professional research communities in government, academia, and industry.
After they have prepped and carefully packaged their experiment, their mini-lab will be submitted to NASA to undergo a months-long formal flight safety review at Johnson Space Center. Students will be given a chance to refine their experiment before the launch, which is planned for late spring of 2022, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Their experiments will share the payload box with mini-labs containing experiments from the professional research community, and will travel on a SpaceX rocket as part of the SSEP Mission 16 payload to the ISS.
Experiments will be conducted on the ISS in low-earth orbit, with data to be transmitted back to SD43, to be analyzed by the students as part of their project. After a 4 to 6 week stay in orbit, the physical experiment itself will come back down to earth on another rocket, and be sent back to the student team. In summer of 2022, the National Conference at Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC, will provide student teams an opportunity to present their results at a meeting of their peers.
Although only students in Grades 5 to 12 can contribute to the experimental design, students from kindergarten up can contribute a possible design for the Mission Patch that could also fly on the ISS.
This year, funding for the program has been provided by the SD43 Foundation, Simon Fraser University and Magellan Aerospace. Canadian access to the program has been facilitated by the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.
More information on this program can be found at the SD43 website and the National Centre for Earth and Space Science Education site.