(WEST PALM BEACH, FL) Roger that? The South Florida Science Museum will offer a seat in “mission control” to Mr. Erich Landstrom to make contact with an astronaut currently aboard the International Space Station. The event, scheduled to take place the week of October 22 culminates an essay contest where area students and educators competed for a chance to participate in the exciting astronaut Q&A via amateur radio.
Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) is a cooperative venture among NASA and other international space agencies that coordinate scheduled radio contacts between astronauts aboard the ISS and school-based organizations. The South Florida Science Museum was one of few organizations in the country invited to make space station contact this year.
“Through our very own Amateur Radio Station (WS4FSM), we’ll partner with the West Palm Beach Amateur Radio Group and a selection of local student essay contest winners to serve as Mission Control when we connect with astronauts during their October flyover,” said Museum CEO, Lew Crampton. “This collaborative effort with the Palm Beach county School District, local ham radio operators and the Museum is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for area students and their families. This space contact is our chance to tune into a ‘real world’ application of science, technology, engineering and math through radio uplink. We are incredibly proud to have been invited by NASA as one of only a handful of US partners for this important event.”
Fifteen students and two teachers were selected from participants in an essay contest. Palm Beach County School District students, area private school students and homeschooled students in grades 3-12, and their teachers, were invited to write a 250 words or less essay on the topic: “Why is space exploration important and what does it mean to me?” Each school selected their most outstanding student and teacher essay to send to the South Florida Science Museum by Monday, September 24, 2012. From there, the winning essay was judged at the South Florida Science Museum by a panel including former astronauts, scientists, educators and area media.
Winners and their families are invited to attend a private party at the Science Museum Friday night, October 12th, from 6pm-8pm. Students and their schools will also be featured in the Palm Beach Post and local television broadcasts and newspaper articles the day of the event. Winners and schools are listed below:
Mr. Landstrom was one of twenty teachers who submitted essays. He teaches physics and earth-space science, and volunteers for NASA’s "Solar System Educator Program" offering teacher training and classroom activities highlighting NASA missions of discovery and exploration. Landstrom is the winner of the 2010 SECME (Science, Engineering, Communication, and Mathematics Education) National Teacher of the Year Award, and the 2004 RadioShack National Teacher Award, recognizing outstanding high school math, science and technology educators.
“The NASA ARISS program will provide a unique and exciting opportunity for students in Palm Beach County,” said Wendy Spielman King, K-12 Science Manager, School District of Palm Beach County. “This program will certainly engage students in science by allowing them to talk directly with the crews living and working aboard the International Space Station. It is sure to be an experience that our students will never forget.”
The ARISS radio contact is one in a series with educational activities in the U.S. and abroad to improve teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It is an integral component of Teaching From Space, a NASA Education office. The office promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique environment of human spaceflight.
In addition to its amateur radio exhibit, the South Florida Science Museum provides curious minds of all ages with an entertaining and educational journey through science and technology. The museum features more than 50 hands-on exhibits, a digital planetarium, freshwater and saltwater aquariums, as well as natural history exhibitions. Each year the museum welcomes more than 125,000 visitors and reaches more than 45,000 students through workshops at the museum and outreach programs to local schools.
For more information regarding the Space Station essay contest, visit SFSM.org or reach the South Florida Science Museum at 561.832.1988.
“Why is space exploration important and what does it mean to me?”
By Erich Landstrom
1961: President John Kennedy proposed that our nation commit itself to landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. In that same special message to Congress on urgent national needs he then asked for more to be spent on accelerating the use of space satellites for world-wide communications and weather observation. He concluded, “…no one can predict with certainty what the ultimate meaning will be of mastery of space. I believe we should go to the moon.”
Improve our lives here. Extend Life to there. But space isn’t somewhere else. It’s here, there, and everywhere. There’s no “outer” to space. It begins at our feet, and our footprints are on the Moon. Space exploration is reorienting, an unsubtle shift from looking “up” to looking “around.” As long as you think of space as somewhere else, you lack cosmic awareness. Awareness opens your mind. In the deepest sense, exploration of space is an exploration of yourself. Probes span the solar system and from their new homes, so wonderfully different, look back to Earth. Even as we’re searching other worlds, we search for ourselves.
During a lunar eclipse I saw the long shadow we cast, there on the surface of the Moon. You sort of see all of us, the entire Earth full of inventors, investigators, users and improvers; the world’s whole population from pole to pole. How awesome then to be able to talk into the space between the two, and have the explorers answer back?
