Bethany students launch experiment into space Out of This World Super Kids of the Metro
(BELOW) BETHANY STUDENTS TELECONFERENCE TO PREPARE THEIR OFFICIAL EXPERIMENT TO BE SENT TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION ABOARD A SPACEX ROCKET (LEFT).
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BY KRISTY BLOSCH . PHOTOS PROVIDED.
the district’s strong history of community, family and corporate support and because of its newly-formed STEM program. Community-supported STEM learning A district-wide call was made for students’ scientific proposals. Then because one of the goals of the NCESSE is to encourage multi-faceted community involvement in STEM education, an open call helped form a community panel to judge the projects and assist in formulating the winning proposals. Stewart and Bethany High School biology teacher Amie Sellers felt this was an important step to make the experience a true community project. The panel consisted of parents, educators and STEM professionals from organizations like Boeing, Tinker Air Force Base, the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and Southern Nazarene University.
“Students who might be interested in a STEM career need to see what the professional scientific community is all about,” said Stewart, and involving the local STEM community was a good introduction. The panel chose student team members then-sophomore Ben Brody and juniors Jenna Cobb, Dalyn Gomez, Jackson Heffron, Hudson Howard, Laz Larson, Rachel Privette, Andrew Ratterman, Alex Reyes, Reese Rhodes, Margarita Rojas-Lopez and Zane Wright. As the team was deciding what kind of experiment to propose, Howard said they looked at some of the previous SSEP projects to see if their experiment could help build on existing data. Past projects covered a variety of fields such as seed germination, crystal growth, cell biology and food studies. The entire experiment had to be contained within a small test tube that could be identically replicated here on Earth and at the ISS simultaneously, with the singular
How many kids can say they’ve launched a science experiment into space? This out-of-this-world scenario is a reality for a group of Bethany High School students. In the fall of 2019, the Bethany Public Schools Center for Science Technology Engineering and Math hosted a competition to select a student experiment for a unique opportunity through the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) with the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE). This program seeks to inspire the next generation of American scientists and engineers by engaging students from all over the nation in real- world science experiences by conducting experiments in microgravity aboard the International Space Station. The NCESSE first contacted Bethany STEM Coordinator Andrea Stewart about participating in the SSEP in 2018 thanks to
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