January 31:  The Lewis Center for Educational Research in Apple Valley, CA hosted an ARISS contact supported by Tom Marshburn for their students in 116 classes at the Academy of Academic Excellence and the Norton Science and Language Academy. They asked him 13 questions, some in English and some in Spanish. They followed Covid guidelines and the audience mix was: 176 educators and staff, 2,652 students, and 3,321 parents, community members and other space enthusiasts. The Center showed a video of students’ STEAM learning activities; after the ARISS contact a student question session was supported by astronaut Dan Tani.  Lewis offered a Facebook livestream of events at https://youtu.be/zvkNhysV-YI and ARISS simulcasted it on the ARISS YouTube Channel. In addition to Social Media postings done by Lewis and picked up by other venues, the High Desert Daily News prepared and ran a story:  https://www.hddailynews.com/news/local/aae-makes-long-distance-phone-call-to-international-space-station/article_86dd10ee-82ea-11ec-972c-23cfe9868feb.html.  Lewis staff began leading student STEAM activities in the 2021 Fall semester. Throughout January they taught some of the Christa McAuliffe Lost Lessons completed by Ricky Arnold and “What is a Satellite”–natural and human-made, i.e. ISS, and what each satellite is. Other lessons were “What is NASA SCaN,” how they communicate, the electromagnetic spectrum and its parts used to communicate. ARISS team members Christy and Bruce Hunter led some communications demos and activities with students. Lewis operates the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope astronomy program through a 25-year partnership with NASA/JPL.

February 2: ARISS was represented at the Space Exploration Educators Conference in Houston, TX. As part of the first day of the conference, the ISS National Lab held its hybrid-style annual Space Station Explorers’ Partners Meeting. ARISS team members Frank Bauer, Melissa Pore, Gina Kwid, and Rosalie White participated. At this meeting, NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s Mike Kincaid gave a lengthy talk. At the SEEC event, ARISS educators Melissa Pore gave a presentation related to ARISS and more details will be in next week’s report.

January 25 & February 2: In late January the Quantorium Children’s Technopark in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Russia, hosted a successful ARISS radio contact supported by Anton Shkaplerov. Then on February 2, Amur State University students took part in an ARISS radio contact with Pyotr Dubrov. Both groups of students are in the Gagarin from Space program.    

January 28: ARISS thanks SCaN for creating Twitter and Facebook posts about the ARISS contact at Lewis Center for Educational Research in California.

January 15: ARISS team member Randy Berger presented two ARISS forums at the Cowtown Hamfest in Forest Hill, TX. Between the two forums, attendees totaled 30. Randy had set up an ARISS exhibit area at a table and an estimated 80 people stopped by and asked questions about ARISS.

ARISS Social Media for January

ARISS Facebook

January ARISS Facebook followers totaled 7,249.
January ARISS Twitter followers were 15,866, a 1% gain over December. 
January Instagram followers grew to 393.  
January YouTube subscribers totaled 1,661, a 1% gain over December.    

Top Tweet in January – 4,162 Impressions

ARISS Upcoming Events 

February 4 Johannes-Kepler Gymnasium, Lebach, Germany, ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team
February 10 Gewerbliche Schulen, Donaueschingen, Germany, ARISS contact, ARISS Europe Team
February 11-13 ARRL National Convention, Orlando FL, exhibit & forum,  ARISS-US Team
February 14 University of Applied Sciences, Aachen, Germany, ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team