Colony "Connections" program offers choice

MAT-SU -- Colony Middle School is only one of 27 schools in 18 states chosen to participate in this year's "Earth-to-Orbit Design Challenge." The personal satellite assistant, or PSA, challenge is the fifth program designed by NASA. NASA education specialist Julie Clift and pre-college officer Alicia Beam, who is in charge of the K-12 education programs at Marshall Space Flight Center, chalk up the program's success to being kid-friendly.

"It's hands-on activities for middle school and high school students," said Clift, who works at MSFC in Huntsville, Ala. "Because it's hands-on, the kids really get excited about what they have done."

NASA's Earth-to-Orbit program has explored spacecraft structures, thermal protection systems and electrodynamics systems. This year CMS is one of the schools chosen to conduct missions based on the NASA-designed PSA, which could be in use in American space stations as early as 2005.

"There are 27 schools and 28 teachers participating in the field test, but the challenge is available online for any teacher who wants to furnish all the materials," Beam said.

The PSA will help astronauts by monitoring air composition, craft temperature, supplies and schedules. The classes conducting experiments on the PSA simulator are exploring the machine's propulsion system, which maneuvers the four-pound PSA by using force produced by small fans.

"Colony is doing a fantastic job with this project," Clift said. "I have been so impressed with everything Dana [Phillips] has told me."

Phillips, the CMS teacher instructing the NASA class, is having her students go even more in-depth than NASA requires of its pilot classrooms. Students have created an online mission log that allows Clift and Beam to check in on the missions' status throughout the class duration.

"We haven't had a teacher do that yet," Clift said.

NASA not only provides the materials for the pilot classrooms, two students and one teacher from each class will visit the MSFC in May to explain what they learned from the eight-mission challenge.

"We want them to let us know what they think about it, tell us about any revisions or any ideas they have," Clift said.

By pulling names from a hat, Phillips chose the two students who will accompany her to Alabama. "They are all such good students," she said.

Part of NASA's focus is to educate the public about space exploration. Teachers who are part of the challenge program will keep the equipment to use in future years, inspiring more students to get involved in space science.

"Hopefully they will come away wanting to be scientists," Clift said.

"That's the ultimate goal, getting the next generation to want to explore," Beam said.

Contact Jen Ransom at jen.ransom@frontiersman.com.