Seventy-eight OA-BCIG students in grades 5-12 received certificates recognizing their participation in the Student Space Flight Experiments Program (SSEP) in ceremonies conducted at the middle school in Odebolt and the high school in Ida Grove this past Wednesday. Forty-three fifth grade students, 23 middle school students, and 12 high school students created proposals for experiments to fly aboard the International Space Station.

Three of the proposals were selected by a panel of regional judges as finalists. These projects included Killifish in Space, lead by Principal Investigator Jessica Gunderson; The Process of crystallization of the protein Lysozyme in space, lead by Principal Investigator Brittanie Rigby; and Glowing Bacteria in Space, lead by Co-Principal Investigators Austin Sadler and Justin Sadler. The finalist proposals have been submitted and are being judged by a panel of scientists from the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education. One of the proposals will be selected to fly aboard the International Space Station.

The proposal that is selected will be prepared by the students and sent to Houston. From Houston it will be shipped to Kazakhstan where it will be launched aboard Soyuz 30 on March 30, 2012. It will be transferred to the International Space Station and will return to Earth’s surface on May 16 aboard Soyuz 29. The experiment will be shipped back to Houston and on to Ida Grove where the students will study their results. Students representing the experiment will have the chance to explain their results at a conference to be conducted at the Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C., in July. Students from Ridge View High School will also be attending the conference to publish the results of their experiment that flew aboard STS-135, the last space shuttle mission this past summer.

“The idea behind this project is to involve students in real science,” said Project Co-Director Jim Christensen. “SSEP is an exciting way for students to see that they can be a part of a something that goes far beyond what we usually think of as science education. We hope that the experience is inspiring for our kids and that they follow their interests into science, technology, engineering, or mathematics-related fields.”

Teachers from OA-BCIG who are leading the science portion of the project are Mrs. Staci Rohlk at the intermediate school in Battle Creek, Mr. Bob Saunders at the middle school in Odebolt, and Mrs. Carol Sadler at the high school in Ida Grove. Jim Christensen of Northwest Area Education Agency and Rita Frahm from the Ida County Economic Development are serving as co-directors of the program.

Two mission patches, one from grades 9-12 and the other from grades 2-8, are yet to be selected from student submissions. The two patches will represent the experiment. The original patches will fly with the experiment when it is launched.

Sponsors of this program opportunity for the district to date are: Farmers Cooperative, Midwest Industries, ISU Extension Ida County, First State Bank, Iowa Savings Bank, Iowa Space Grant Consortium, Ida County Economic Development, and United Bank of Iowa. Contributions are still needed to complete this project.

The Student Space Flight Experiments Program (http://ssep.ncesse.org) is undertaken by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education in partnership with Nanoracks, LLC. This on-orbit educational research opportunity is enabled through NanoRacks, LLC, which is working in partnership with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory.