Last year, two Pickerington High School North students Dorian Hamilton and Macy Erickson made headlines when they were selected to help NASA with an experiment.
This historic achievement is the third time a Pickerington student project has been accepted in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) which in turn has helped reignite the love of science for countless students.
Testing a new hypothesis
Over the past few years, Pickerington North High School science teacher Carla Foltz noticed a lack of motivation in her students. She needed to pull students out of the haze of distracted online learning and teach them to engage again.
In 2020, space missions significantly increased, particularly due to a large number of launches by SpaceX.
“I started noticing a major uptick in news cycles about the space project, Elon Musk and all of the future plans they had,” Foltz says. “It really reminded me of when I was younger… the space exploration and Neil Armstrong and John Glenn and all those kinds of things were such a huge part of school life and interesting to students and children.”
Foltz began to research, and she found the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP), a program created by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education.
The program was launched in 2010 to empower future scientists and engineers with hands-on scientific research experiences and is available for students from middle school through college.
In 2021, Pickerington North became the second school in the state to join the program. That same year, the school completed its first project which was chosen to go to space.
Foltz and Anna Meyer, another science teacher at the school who was involved with the project, helped bring the programming to the district and make it available to students in grades 6-12.
Although crafting a project viable enough to go to space seems daunting, Meyer says it all comes down to how she proposes the project to her middle school students. She prompts her students to come up with an experiment to be tested both in the classroom and in space that would improve the lives of those functioning in microgravity.
“I often pretend I’m going through my day, and I think about all of the things that I use and do,” Meyer says. “What would happen if I’m now in microgravity – do all of these things work the same way?”
Not just any project goes to space. Each school sends three projects to the SSEP group, which in turn chooses a finalist from each school to go to space.
The Liquid I.V. project
In 2023, Dorian Hamilton and Mary Erickson’s study on the drink known as Liquid I.V. was chosen to go to space and preparations got underway.
When Hamilton and Erickson were presented with the project, known as Mission 18, their teacher gave the example of testing how Kool-Aid reacts in space. This example was a source of inspiration for the two student-athletes, who both frequently drink Liquid I.V. to stay hydrated.
Hamilton and Erickson wanted to test if Liquid I.V. would work in the same way for astronauts as they have limited access to water in space.
Together they crafted a proposal with research and a relevant and practical experimental design that could be followed in the classroom and on the space station. The combination of a strong presentation and unique proposal made the project a perfect fit for the SSEP.
“I just think the Liquid I.V. hydration was so powerful because it was totally relevant to these students, and they worked very diligently on their project,” Foltz says.
When their experiment was chosen, Hamilton and Erickson worked at least once a week with Foltz to perfect it.
One barrier they ran into was choosing a type of cell to be used in the experiment. Initially, the students wanted to test Liquid I.V.’s effectiveness on skin cells, however, they were told that was not an option so they opted to complete their research on plant cells instead.
Hamilton and Erickson spent weeks in the lab at school and while they dove into their research, they also deepened their scientific expertise and were able to grow on a personal level.
Although this project wasn’t a requirement for them to graduate later that semester, they remained dedicated to success throughout the entire process.
“I would say that I gained a more in-depth knowledge of plant cells and the different aspects of them,” Erickson says. “But I also feel like I learned more about myself and what drives me.”
Into space
A unique factor students face each year is the viability of their project for use in space. The students create two identical experiments – one to be tested in the classroom, and one to be shipped to the International Space Station.
Once the mission is ready, the mini-labs are shipped to Texas, where roughly 40 experiments are gathered from across the country. Then, it is driven to Cape Canaveral, its final destination before entering the stratosphere.
When the experiments finally reach the space station, students conduct their ground truth experiment in the classroom. Once the data comes back from space, students conduct a comparative analysis to test their hypothesis.
Mission 18 was set to launch last spring, however due to time and budget constraints, the project didn’t officially launch until November.
Since Hamilton and Erickson had graduated months prior in May, they could not assess the results of the mission. However, a group of sixth-grade students at Harmon Middle School are carrying on the project, giving them a chance to make their mark on the experiment.
Although the project is exclusive to middle and high school students, the Pickerington Schools have increased involvement through the SSEP Art Patch Competition.
For each space mission, astronauts wear a patch to commemorate their flight. The Art Patch Competition is a chance for students in grades 3-12 to design the official patch for the mission.
From the lab to the art room, the SSEP has created a way for students of all grade levels to engage in science.
“It’s a huge number of students that have the opportunity to be connected and learn a little bit or a lot, actually, with some of these projects,” Foltz says. “Something about our space program, and, more importantly, just scientific research in general.”
Megan Brokamp is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at mbrokamp@cityscenemediagroup.com.