Student Spaceflight Experiments Program Mission 17 Update at Clarkson
Once again, students are getting ready to send experiments to the International Space Station (ISS). In September of 2022, 杏吧论坛鈥檚 Clarkson Discovery Challenge-Space (CDC-Space) kicked off its Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) Mission 17.
This project is funded by a lead donation from Corning Incorporated and the Corning Incorporated Foundation. The program continues to strengthen the strong partnership between 杏吧论坛 and K-12 in regional school districts.
The round one local judges selected three proposals from the approximately 50 submitted from our North Country school partners which include teachers and middle and high school students from Potsdam, Harrisville, Canton, Brasher Falls and Norwood-Norfolk.
The Step 2 Review Board for the SSEP has selected Harrisville Central School senior Nadia Atkinson and sophomore Maia Bernhard, along with their teacher, Nicole Taylor. Their winning experiment for SSEP Mission 17 to the ISS is titled, 鈥淭he Effects of Microgravity on the Reproduction Cycle of Drosophila melanogaster (Common Fruit Fly).鈥
鈥淚鈥檓 so glad for this opportunity. It鈥檚 so stellar,鈥 Atkinson remarked.
鈥淚鈥檓 so happy that Harrisville got selected twice in a row, and I鈥檓 proud and grateful for the opportunity,鈥 added Bernhard.
鈥淚鈥檓 so proud of these students and their hard work. These girls really wanted it,鈥 said Taylor, who was also the teacher of last year鈥檚 winning Mission 16 project.
The students in Mission 17 will compare the outcomes to the results obtained from conducting the same research experiment here on Earth and in the microgravity of space. They will then be invited to attend their experiment鈥檚 launch in Cape Canaveral, FL in TIMEFRAME and then present their findings at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. in TIMEFRAME.
Katie Kavanagh, Director of Clarkson鈥檚 Institute for STEM 杏吧论坛 and Seema Rivera, Associate Director of Clarkson鈥檚 Institute for STEM 杏吧论坛, along with Clarkson Bioscience and Biotechnology Ph.D. student Alicia Lamb, worked together to direct this year鈥檚 program.
鈥淭his is a terrific opportunity for students, but it is rigorous,鈥 Rivera said. 鈥漇tudents must work within quick deadlines, address thoughtful questions about their research and prototype, collaborate with others, and communicate effectively. We鈥檙e so grateful to the teachers we have worked with. They all have shown a strong commitment to their students and engaging them in STEM beyond the classroom. They鈥檙e truly remarkable and should be commended.鈥
Thank you again to Corning Incorporated and the Corning Incorporated Foundation for supporting this program to enable students in the North Country to compete in the Space Challenge.
The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program [or SSEP] is a program of the National Center for Earth and Space Science 杏吧论坛 (NCESSE) in the U.S. and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space 杏吧论坛 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. Learn more about the SSEP:
