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Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) - Mission 14 to the International Space Station

by , posted on 12:24 PM, June 7, 2019
Design a microgravity experiment for the International Space Station
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Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) - Mission 14 to the International Space Station   

A U.S. National Model STEM Education Initiative

Program Start: September 2019

Inquiry Deadline: June 17, 2019

Contact: Dr. Jeff Goldstein, Center Director
National Center for Earth and Space Science Education
(USA) 301-395-0770, jeffgoldstein@ncesse.org


The Opportunity for Your Community


Your school district, even a single large school, conducts an authentic, and grade level appropriate, science research competition September to November 2019, for typically 300 of your students in the grade 5-12 range.

In your community, teams of 3-5 students would each design and write a formal proposal for a microgravity experiment (an experiment in a 'weightless' environment) in a science discipline of their choice, to be conducted on the International Space Station. The essential question driving experiment design is:

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?

A curriculum and content resources for teachers and students support foundational instruction on science conducted in microgravity and experiment design, and a 2-hour professional development video-conference is conducted for your entire educator team before program start.

Each Science experiment must be designed against the Engineering constraints imposed by the flight certified mini-laboratory that must be used, and by the real world Technology constraints of flight operations to and from Low Earth Orbit. This is authentic, real world STEM, as a project-based learning initiative.

A 2-step proposal review process, using a formal proposal evaluation rubric, culminates in a national review board meeting at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, in December 2019, and selecting one of your student team experiments to launch from Kennedy Space Center on a SpaceX rocket in late Spring 2020. Your community's experiment will be transported 250 miles above Earth's surface to the International Space Station where it will be operated by the astronauts for a month, and then returned to your student flight team for harvesting and analysis. You can send a delegation of students, parents, teachers, and administrators to the launch in Florida, and to the SSEP National Conference held at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in early July, in Washington, DC. 

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