April 21: Bellefontaine (OH) High School hosted an ARISS contact with Kayla Barron for all students enrolled in the city’s elementary, intermediate, middle, and high schools. A 9th grader who had earned his amateur radio license, sounded like an adult handling the introduction and managing the mic for students from all 4 schools asking the questions. Two of the high school’s graduates gave inspiring talks on studying hard and their engineering careers at SpaceX and NASA Glenn Research Center. 2,316 K-12 students, 234 educators, and 49 administrators, parents and professionals watched the livestream. From Michigan, ARISS Technical Mentor Gordon Scannell and ARRL Great Lakes Director Dale Williams drove to Ohio for the day. Other VIPs attending were the mayor and school superintendent, school board members, a rep from Armstrong Air & Space Museum, and ARISS Education Ambassador Diane Warner. 315 members of the public and a Michigan school class of 30 watched live via a YouTube video; see https://youtu.be/6t5ZQOw2j68. In a week’s time, 1,538 had watched the recording.
The Bellefontaine School District posted this teacher comment: “It [ARISS lessons] plants a seed in students. It’s creating experiences for students so they can find their path in life. Even with needing to lead a year of lessons on space and communications, I would do it all again.” A high school math teacher wrote, “Ms. Barron’s answers were so well phrased. She restated students’ names, showing she loved talking to them. I truly thank her for showing so much compassion to our youth!” A fourth grade teacher said: “My whole class is inspired to become astronauts!”
Last year, students established the Bellefontaine High School Amateur Radio Club and through the months, classes took part in lessons on wireless communication and space communication.
Media–pre-contact:
- Springfield News Sun
2. Peak of Ohio
https://www.peakofohio.com/news/details.cfm?clientid=5&id=339129
3. Bellefontaine Examiner
Media—post-contact:
- WHIO-TV
https://www.whio.com/news/local/local-school-set-talk-with-astronauts-later-this-month/6VDGG4VLYNC4NIKFSFWYIAZERE/ - Peak of Ohio
https://www.peakofohio.com/news/details.cfm?clientid=5&id=339305
April 14: An ARISS contact held for students at the Rakia-Herzliya Science Center (HSC) in Herzliya, Israel was supported by Axiom crew member Etyan Stibbe. He answered 9 questions. 341 people attended the event and 315 viewers watched the livestream, which is at https://youtu.be/pCf-Spm5R6c?t=2013. In a week’s time, the recording had 1,339 views. Stibbe collaborated with HSC and is aligned with The Rakia Mission, which inspires the Israeli population about space and its opportunities. HSC is an educational institute promoting STEM to 1,500 K-12 students. Its enrichment programs cover technology and science including space, robotics, physics, computer sciences, and life sciences. One of those programs included their ARISS project, which gave 200 high school students a variety of related educational activities over several months on how to operate HSC’s amateur radio satellite station in its Space Laboratory. The Israel Amateur Radio Club helped students track and operate through LEO satellites and learn how to handle radio communications for the ARISS contact.
April 5-6: Engineering students and radio enthusiasts gathered at Pandit Deendayal Energy University in Gandhinagar, India for the “Two Day Workshop on Amateur Radio Technologies.” Rajesh Vagadia, who had assisted as an ARISS volunteer for 2012 and 2019 ARISS contacts in India, conducted sessions with help from ham radio leaders—six men and one woman. 40 students took part in the workshop for eight hours each day; some of the university’s faculty attended. Sessions provided many demos of the newest technologies used in ham radio, some educational aspects of ARISS, and basic radio concepts, i.e., signal propagation and modulation. Students enjoyed the demo on how to receive ARISS SSTV transmissions (picture downlinks) using a simple software-defined radio dongle and a home-built handheld antenna. Also, leaders set up two ham radio stations for students to do ham radio SSTV contacts with one other from room to room—students enjoyed transmitting and receiving their own images and audio to each other. A YouTube summarizing workshop events is at: https://youtu.be/lFf4g4Ubm1k and 160 people have viewed it. Vagadia wrote: “For several years, I’ve run an ARISS awareness campaign for Gujarat schools—top-class metro ones to small underprivileged-village ones. I believe knowledge should be for all, equally. Right now, I’m assisting a school in a very tiny village with their ARISS education proposal.”
ARISS Upcoming Events
May 13 Scuola Secondaria G Leopardi & Macherio, Lombardia Italy ARISS contact, ARISS Europe team