Competition will send a North Country K-12 student research project into space
Thanks to a lead donation from Corning Incorporated and the Corning Incorporated Foundation, Clarkson University’s Clarkson Discovery Challenge-Space (CDC-Space) has been accepted as a participating community in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) Mission 16 to the International Space Station (ISS).
This exciting STEM project builds upon the strong partnership and rich history of K-12 outreach between Clarkson University and regional school districts. Around 200 students will learn about microgravity experiment design and proposal writing as part of the SSEP. It is expected that 40 to 70 flight experiment proposals will be submitted by Clarkson’s student teams. From those proposals, one of the experiments will be sent into space to be performed on the International Space Station.
Students will work in groups of 4-5 to develop and propose experiments for the International Space Station through the fall. The experiment chosen by SSEP is expected to launch to the ISS in late spring 2022.
“The idea of having a connection with NASA and space exploration has provided our students a highly motivating, engaging, and meaningful opportunity to participate in the process of scientific inquiry. This program has generated extraordinary enthusiasm and inspired boundless creativity; we couldn't have replicated this level of student engagement without the inspiration of SSEP,” said Canton teacher Megan Smith.
“We’re excited to have the opportunity to judge these students’ experiments as well as coach them along the way through our support of Clarkson’s Student Spaceflight Experiments Program,” said Patrick Gilley, Corning Canton plant manager. “The Canton plant has worked on many projects that enable space exploration, including manufacturing the Destiny window on the International Space Station and the optics for the Hubble Telescope, and this project allows us to share our passion with the next generation of scientists and engineers.”
“This project is awesome! Students develop their own investigation about microgravity and write a research proposal to compete against each other to send their experiment into space aboard the International Space Station, America's National Laboratory! We are working with science teachers and middle and high school students from several school districts that include Harrisville, Canton, Brasher Falls, Parishville-Hopkinton and Norwood-Norfolk. Clarkson faculty and students will provide support to the students as experts in STEM. We’ve had some excellent Clarkson Honors students who are a great help” said Dr. Seema Rivera, Associate Director of the Institute for STEM Education at Clarkson University.
“Thanks to this opportunity, Clarkson University, Corning, and local North Country students and teachers are actually participants in the American Space Program. It is an incredible honor and I cannot wait to see what the students propose," said Dr. Katie Kavanagh, Director of the Institute for STEM Education at Clarkson University.
The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program [or 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 Education 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: http://ssep.ncesse.org
