April 24: ARISS-US Education Committee member Melissa Pore and committee lead Kathy Lamont, along with Ria Jairam, an ARRL Director, presented at a panel session for the ARRL Virginia Convention.  The session title was, “Get Inclusive with Non-traditional Operators.  But How?”.  During the webinar, Lamont and Pore discussed their efforts to inspire youth and educators in radio, space, and wireless technology and described their respective ARISS school contacts.  Jairam focused on women and youth in radio. Attendees totaled 38.

April 26: St Margaret’s School in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia hosted an ARISS contact with Shannon Walker who answered 15 student questions. The faculty had shared related STEM lessons with four other area schools: Brentwood Park Primary School, Beacon Hills College, St Francis Primary School, Berwick Grammar School, and a few students from the first two schools were invited to the ARISS event to ask Walker their questions. With COVID, onsite were 13 students, 13 parents, 4 school staff, and 4 radio amateurs. Another 129 viewed the action via off-site livestream and 21 listened via the ham radio audio service Echolink and Internet Radio Linking Project platforms. An hour prior to the radio contact, those taking part saw and heard STEM-related programming and short talks. These began with the school principal acknowledging the oldest Victoria native peoples, whose current king provided a goodwill message to the students, audience, and ARISS team. The principal shared with listeners that 70% of St Margaret’s girls and boys undertake STEM-related careers. The contact was taped, with 463 people viewing it; the link (begin watching at 1:13:50) is at: https://youtu.be/181z0fW-AsI.    

April 26: Students at the all-girls’ high school, St Scholastica’s College in Glebe Point, New South Wales, Australia held an ARISS contact with Victor Glover. He answered 16 student questions while nearly 100 people, students, educators, and parents, watched. Another 94 viewed the action via off-site livestream and 18 listened via the ham radio audio service Echolink and Internet Radio Linking Project platforms.

April 28: The Blue Mountain Gazette, a newspaper published in Katoomba, New South Wales (NSW), Australia, ran an article covering the ARISS radio contact on April 20th between Victor Glover and Winmalee (NSW) Public School students. The story described student preparations for the ARISS contact and quoted Principal Kate Ford, “All of our students have been studying a unit on space … with a focus on the International Space Station.” One of Glover’s comments for students that the article featured was: “be resilient life-long learners and good teammates.”

Upcoming Events

  • May 7 Green Bank Elementary Middle School, Green Bank WV, ARISS contact, ARISS-US team
  • May 11 College Descartes, Atony France, ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe team