Message to US Educators

May 28:  ARISS educator Kathy Lamont, a Prince William County Schools (VA) gifted-education teacher at Belmont Elementary School in Woodbridge, was nominated and selected as the 2023 Air & Space Forces (AFA) Gabriel Chapter Teacher of the Year awardee. That made her eligible as a candidate, among other educators, for the 2023 Air & Space Forces Virginia Teacher of the Year—and she won!  AFA officials presented the state-level award to her at her school.

June 5: Students at Harbor Creek High School in Harborcreek, PA, have an ARISS contact late this year and recently, launched a weather balloon with ham radio equipment on board. Youth in the school’s Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) carried out the balloon project as a learning mission in preparation for the ARISS contact.  A student said, “We are using this event as a first-round test of our [radio] systems to shake out any bugs.” The payload consisted of an APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) unit that transmitted position, a Morse code radio beacon for tracking, and a digital Amateur TV transmitter experiment for youth to view and monitor the launch. Youths hope to launch two balloons in the fall; over 20 students enjoy the ATG. The past three years, many developed a keen interest in ham radio, earning ham licenses. The instructor said, “Five recently took and passed FCC exams, with another dozen studying. A few who graduated last year come back to launches.”  The school honors students with a display on the school radio room wall, recognizing those who earn FCC licenses. On this “Wall of Call Signs,” each student has a special brick celebrating their achievement, showing name and call sign, level of license earned, and date.

June 1: The ARISS-Russia Team carried out an ARISS contact and taught the About Gagarin from Space set of lessons at the Amur Mission Control Center area of the Amur State University in Blagoveshchensk.  This contact benefited the city’s students from the MAOU Ust-Ivanovo Secondary School.  16 students, a teacher, and a parent took part, along with university staff who gave tours and talks about the university’s space programs and careers. Sergey Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin supported the ARISS radio contact.

June 4: Another ARISS radio contact sponsored by the ARISS-Russia team was hosted during the Children’s Creative Competition for the Day of Cosmonautics held in Orel, Russia. Eleven youth communicated with Andrey Fediaev during this ARISS radio contact; 30 people attended the event.  Youth learned lessons from the About Gagarin from Space program. Mission Control-Moscow scheduled this contact.

May 31 & June 1: Students from over 50 schools in many parts of the United Arab Emirates visited the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) in Dubai. They commented happily about their tour of the facility, glimpsing labs and workstations, seeing a presentation on space stations, and taking part in ARISS contacts. The MBRSC reported that:      

“Students received comprehensive training on ham radio, unravelling the complexities of the critical communication tool used since the 20^th century. The highlight of the programme was the live ARISS contact, one each day, with Sultan Al Neyadi. Youth were spellbound.”

The UAE Astronaut Programme mission manager said, “Through these ham radio sessions with Sultan, we strive to ignite a passion for space and science in the next generation.” A short video created for MBRSC featured smiling girls and boys of various ages asking Al Neyadi their questions. A video of the action posted on Facebook earned 255 views.  A Centre web story is at https://www.zawya.com/en/press-release/people-in-the-news/sultan-alneyadi-engages-in-live-interaction-with-students-during-ham-radio-sessions-from-the-iss-ac6dn5p6. MBRSC planned more events like these.

ARISS Social Media

ARISS social media leader Jim Reed reported these highlights for May 2023:

• 332,663 impressions on ARISS social media for May, surpassing 300,000 for the second time this year.
• 249 posts created, averaged 1,688.6 impressions per post. 
• Post volume was driven by a higher number of reported ARISS events for May (11 school contacts, a convention, Ax-2 crew actions, and crew members making radio contacts with hams in addition to the scheduled school contacts).

ARISS Total May Social Media Metrics:

• ARISS Twitter – Total Impressions / Views 236,933,  Interactions / Engagements 6,824 
• ARISS Facebook – Total Impressions 91,541,  Interactions / Engagements 3,229
• ARISS Instagram – Total Reach 4,189,  Interactions / Engagements 545
• ARISS Mastodon – Interactions / Engagements 198
• ARISS LinkedIn – 10 new Followers,  27 Reactions     
• ARISS YouTube – 30 new Subscribers, Total Subscribers 1.95k

May Social Media Top Posts & April Total Metrics and images 

• Top May Tweet–on ARISS contact at Saudi Space Commission: Impressions 21,787, Interactions / Engagements 433
• Top May Facebook Post – list of ARISS radio frequencies: Reaches / Impressions 9,535,  Engagements 435
• Top May Instagram Post – viewers favorite radio to use for ARISS contacts: Reach 124,  Interactions / Engagements 31, 30 Likes
• Top May Mastodon Post – viewers’ favorite software to track the ISS: Interactions 16

ARISS Upcoming Events

June 20: Youth at Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, Dubai UAE–ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team

June 21: Space Port Area Conference for Educators, KSC, FL–ARISS contact, ARISS Educator Forum, ARISS Educate-the-Educator Workshop, ARISS-USA Team

June 22: Youth at Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, Dubai UAE–ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team

May 26: The Children’s Inn at National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD hosted an ARISS radio contact with Axiom Ax-2 crew member John Shoffner. 10 very special children ages 6 through 16 talked with him and he answered 17 of their questions. ARISS leaders Frank Bauer and Dave Taylor engaged with 22 people taking part in this contact, including the youth, children’s parents, The Inn’s administrators, and professionals helping to coordinate the event. Staff had taught some STEM lessons and ARISS reviewed aspects such as orbital mechanics, radio communications, and details about the ISS and astronauts.  The Inn posted Social Media items and a nice web story; the latter is at https://childrensinn.org/stories/ariss/.  

May 26:  St. Francis Xavier High School students took part in an ARISS contact in Gloucester, ON, Canada.  Warren Hoburg answered 16 questions. The school gym held a few hundred youth and faculty, and the other 2,000 students watched via livestream.  CFRA talk radio posted a story after interviewing two ninth-grade girls. One said she was “fascinated about everything up there” [space]. The other wants a career that is “something in space science.” Go to  https://www.iheartradio.ca/580-cfra/audio-podcasts/oaw-local-students-connect-with-us-astronaut-on-iss-via-ham-radio-1.19710775?mode=Article Grade nine students had participated in special lessons on radio communications and the ISS and had engaged in the school’s “Study of the Universe and Space Exploration” science curriculum.

May 25: Students at Middlesboro Middle School asked questions of John Shoffner during an ARISS contact; he answered 14 questions. Despite school having closed for the summer and some friends and family not back yet from Shoffner’s SpaceX launch, a mix of 80 watched—youth, parents, faculty, ARISS team members, and some of Shoffner’s boyhood teachers. WATE-TV, St. Charles Herald Guide, Lexington Herald-Leader, Pineville Sun-Cumberland Courier, and AOL ran stories about the event. About 30 companies in town decorated front windows in space themes.  Middlesboro School District STEM director Chris Stotts said, “We have plans to build a STEM lab that MIT will help design [for] middle and high school. There’ve been great things that have been channeled through John’s generosity.”  The school became a Verizon Innovative Learning School, receiving technology and unique learning tools for students and faculty. They joined STEM initiatives connected to NASA and Axiom Space. Youth engaged with rocket launches, robots, and lunar and Martian habitat design. Shoffner gave middle and high school students an inside look at life on the ISS and his required launch preparations, and taught lessons such as how to “play catch” with a ball in microgravity versus on Earth and how water and power are generated on the ISS.

May 27-28: The ARISS-Russia team led by Sergey Samburov supported two ARISS contacts for youth and taught them the series of lessons titled About Gagarin From Space. The SBEI Secondary School No. 285 of the Krasnoselsky District of Saint Petersburg hosted the first ARISS contact, which was in conjunction with the children’s festival “Die Hard.”  About 2,000 watched as youth talked to Andrey Fediaev. The second contact involved students of the village of Muslyumovo in the Republic of Tatarstan. They engaged in talking with Dmitry Petelin during their ARISS contact.  As with other ARISS-Russian sponsored ARISS contacts, Mission Control Center-Moscow scheduled these contacts.

May 21:  Axiom Ax-2 crew members Ali Alqarni and Rayyanah Barnawi engaged in an ARISS contact with selected students hosted by the Saudi Space Commission (SSC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The youth had 14 questions for the two crew members who took turns answering. The activity was part of Saudi Arabia’s first sustainable Human Space Flight program designed to, among other things, conduct research in many areas of science. The SSC posted a Tweet with a video that is a little over a minute in length, highlighting the ARISS contact and featuring a few of the students—it has garnered 156.4k viewers as of June 2!  See https://twitter.com/saudispace/status/1661452020237193222?s=20.

May 20: ARISS educator Kathy Lamont and her daughter traveled to The Plains, VA for the American Rocketry Challenge National Finals, a major competition for middle school and high school youth. The two set up an exhibit table with the ARISS slide show, an ARISS roll-up banner, brochures, and ham radio station equipment that would attract kids’ attention and entice them to handle it. Kathy talked to 60 people, and said, “It was non-stop talking for over five hours—a lot of techy kids, their rocket team leaders, and parents.” 

May 18-21: ARISS volunteers put on a show at Hamvention 2023 (the world’s largest ham radio convention—33,000 people!) in Xenia, OH.  Ten ARISS team members, including two SIP interns, set up and staffed a two-space booth featuring ARISS hardware and education programs and a giant poster kicking off a year-long anniversary celebration of 40 years of amateur radio contacts made from a human spaceflight vehicle. All told, ARISS volunteers talked to over 1,460 people.  ARISS felt honored to garner an official Hamvention forum for the third year in a row; 130 people attended. They listened to Frank Bauer and Rosalie White give introductions of speakers including ARISS Director of Engineering Randy Berger and three high school youth. One, a SIP intern, presented his part in the development of ARISS’ new telerobotics education program. The other two spoke on their paths after taking part in an ARISS contact (one girl wants to be an astronaut—the other girl plans a STEM career).  An attendee Tweeted about the forum: “There’s a good size crowd here for this interesting topic; I learned some things to bring back to my school.” A surprising number of folks stopped at the booth the next two days to express compliments on the forum. ARISS hosted four mini-forums next to the booth; topics covered ARISS education, ARISS engineering, ARISS operations, and a Q&A with a meet-and-greet of ARISS volunteers. At both the Hamvention educator forum and the Hamvention youth forum, a team member gave cameos about ARISS.

May 22: ARISS Director of Education Kathy Lamont, ARISS Technical Mentor Fred Kemmerer, and Frank Bauer led an ARISS Orientation Webinar with 45 attendees. This webinar focused on next steps for the 11 newest educational institutions selected to host ARISS radio contacts. The educators and informal educators will plan when to move forward with their education activities and be assigned ARISS Operations Team members to give assistance with equipment plans. The ARISS radio contacts would be scheduled between January and June 2024.  

May 31: The ARISS contact with students at Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai, UAE was successful. More details will be in next week’s report, which will cover a second contact at the Centre, which was hosted on June 1.

ARISS Upcoming Events
June 4: Children’s Creative Competition for Cosmonautics, Orel, Russia-ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia Team
June 10: Youth in Saint Petersburg, Russia-ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia Team

May 19: Webb Bridge Middle School in Alpharetta, GA hosted an ARISS contact for the students with Warren Hoburg answering 18 student questions. A crowd of 250 made up of students, faculty, Fulton County School District officials, and reporters attended the event. They appreciated seeing taped greetings to the students from Frank Culbertson. A livestream offered to the public garnered 455 viewers within a week’s time. All students had been learning things about space, and 6^th graders were targeted to focus on geology and space sciences throughout the year. The school partnered with North Fulton Amateur Radio League and helped youth experiment with Morse code, get on the air to make amateur radio contacts, and learn about satellites, orbital mechanics, and the Earth’s atmosphere.

May 19: During their ARISS radio contact with Warren Hoburg, students at Fairview Elementary School in Olathe, Kansas asked him 25 questions about what it is like to live and work on the ISS.  815 students and faculty watched the action. Four Kansas City TV reporters came to the event; three stories have been spotted—one on Fox news (https://bit.ly/3ICrQys) claiming market viewership of 23,557, and ABC-TV stories on their early evening and late night  news (https://bit.ly/3WG3Nog) claiming market viewership average of 51,316. Viewer count of the livestream after 6 days totaled 436. Students had studied astronomy and STEM careers, and in the science club, they discovered radio satellites and radio communications. School counselor Mitchell Cloud said, “Thank you for this incredible opportunity to talk with Astro Woody.”

May 22: ARISS thanks NASA’s Spanish engagement team at HQ for preparing NASA web and social media stories in Spanish about the 63 schools in 12 Caribbean and Central America nations who loved their ARISS contact of late 2022. A teacher was quoted on how ARISS inspired her students to become interested in science and technology, and curious about space.  Story URLs are—

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NASA_es/status/1660648739604766721?s=20

Web article: Cómo hablar con un astronauta en el espacio | Ciencia de la NASA

Facebook: NASA en español | Facebook

May 20: Students of the State Budgetary Educational Institution of Secondary School No. 285 in the Krasnoselsky District of St. Petersburg, Russia held a successful ARISS contact with Dmitri Petelin. Those involved in the event numbered 120. As with other ARISS-Russian sponsored ARISS contacts, this one was scheduled by Russia’s Mission Control Center-Moscow.

ARISS Upcoming Events
May 31: Youth at Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, Dubai UAE – ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team

                                 

May 11: ARISS intern Unsh Rawal gave a presentation to 10 ARISS senior leaders, summarizing his work of the past year for ARISS.  He assembled Java and Python code, built a user interface, and linked communications resources to remotely command and control a Makeblock mBot robot used in educational environments. The mBot is one item in the ARISS *STAR* kit that in the future, teachers will receive and use.  Open source code Unsh assembled allows an educator’s students to work with schools locally and around the country; schools register their robots and can see a list of other schools that registered their robot.  Schools can check a box that permits another school’s students to send commands that remotely control the other school’s robot. Modes to command the robots include Bluetooth or a radio mode using APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System).

May 18-21: Each May, ARISS pulls out the stops exhibiting to ham radio enthusiasts who travel to Xenia, OH from all over the world to Hamvention. This convention is the world’s largest amateur radio convention—31,000 attended last year.  The ARISS team has been planning its activities for months, including a booth with displays of hardware and education programs, a forum and mini-forums, and importantly, a kick-off of a 40-year anniversary celebration of amateur radio contacts made from a human spaceflight vehicle. More details on ARISS at Hamvention will be reported soon.     

May: ARISS-US Education Committee members are planning their activities for two educator conferences in late June. Kathy Lamont and Joanne Cozens Michael will attend the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in Philadelphia. Kathy recognized the importance of sharing the ARISS program at ISTE saying, “It draws like-minded educators together around the focus of technology and educational impact … who are open to using varied technologies including wireless activities involving ham radio.”  For the 2023 Space Port Area Conference for Educators at Kennedy Space Center, six ARISS team members will attend. In addition to a presentation, ARISS aims to offer a special Q&A ARISS radio contact for selected educators. Following the conference, ARISS will hold an “Educate the Educator” workshop for educators who’ve signed up to receive instruction on using SPARKI (Space Pioneers Amateur Radio Kit) as a basic electronics teaching tool in their school. More details will be coming.  

May 10:  ARISS thanks NASA’s Applied Sciences group for its new web story on students at 63 schools in 12 Caribbean and Central America nations who loved an ARISS contact late last year– https://appliedsciences.nasa.gov/our-impact/story/caribbean-and-central-american-classrooms-connect-nasa-astronaut-space. The NASA Earth Applied Sciences Disasters program and other world organizations had supported a collaborative awareness initiative, Disaster Fighters. This group helped the students discover more about NASA and platforms in space such as the ISS that monitor natural hazards on earth. Students researched how information provided by this monitoring work can help their families better understand impacts of climate change and potential disasters. The article’s author wrote that the ARISS contact “was a way to connect [students’] curiosity with science’s role in creating a more resilient future for the communities where they live.”

ARISS Upcoming Events    
May 19: Webb Bridge Middle School, Alpharetta GA – ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team
May 19: Fairview Elementary School, Olathe KS – ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team
May 20: Youth in Saint Petersburg, Russia – ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia Team
May 26: St. Francis Xavier H.S., Gloucester ON, Canada – ARISS contact, ARISS-Canada Team              

                                 

May 1: The Council Rock South Amateur Radio Club, along with the Technology Club, facilitated students at Council Rock High School South in Holland, PA in trading questions and answers with Steve Bowen during their ARISS radio contact. He answered 17 of their questions. In the auditorium, 618 students, faculty, and parents watched the action. The contact was live streamed and is at www.crsarc.org/live. Within days, 1,744 people had watched the recording. A reporter from CBS TV station KYW in Philadelphia came, and quickly posted a short video at https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/council-rock-high-school-south-speaks-with-astronauts-on-international-space-station/. Several reps from the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) attended and the ARRL Pennsylvania Section ran an online article covering the contact; it is at https://epa-arrl.org/council-rock-south-high-school-has-out-of-this-world-contact-with-international-space-station/.  Before students initiated the contact, everyone watched a video from Pennsylvania Auditor General Timothy DeFoor congratulating students for their work preparing for the ARISS contact. The school engineering team and the Technology Club received recognition for accomplishments in constructing the radio antennas and for participating in the ARRL School Club Roundup’s on-the-air radio activities. A division of the school’s Technology Club is a HUNCH group–High schools United with NASA to Create Hardware. Members of the Warminster Amateur Radio Club lent a hand, and among other things, taught youth to build and solder electronic projects and do transmitter hunts.

ARISS Social Media

ARISS’ social media leader Jim Reed reported these highlights for April 2023:

• ARISS had 259,881 impressions on social media in April. 
• ARISS gained >1% Followers per month since January 1, 2023, equating to ~1,200 new Followers for the year so far, and ARISS now has more than 28,000 total Followers.

April Social Media Top Posts & April Total Metrics and images 

• Top April Tweet–Steve Bowen to talk to Montross Middle School: Impressions 20,132, Interactions / Engagements 124

• Top April Facebook Post – ham radio operators are part of Artemis 2 crew: Reaches / Impressions 9,691,  Engagements 194

• Top April Instagram Post – times the ARISS Radio must be powered down for ISS work: Reach 203,  Interactions / Engagements 21

• Top April Mastodon Post – ARISS’ anniversary of 1,000^th ARISS radio contact: Interactions 15

ARISS Total April Social Media Metrics:

• ARISS Twitter – Total Impressions / Views 192,766,  Interactions / Engagements 3,931 
• ARISS Facebook – Total Impressions 64,843,  Interactions / Engagements 1,910
• ARISS Instagram – Total Reach 2,272,  Interactions / Engagements 258
• ARISS Mastodon – Interactions / Engagements 123
• ARISS LinkedIn – 5 new Followers,  126 Reactions     
• ARISS YouTube – Total Subscribers 1.92k, an increase of almost 100

ARISS Upcoming Events
May 19: Webb Bridge Middle School, Alpharetta, GA – ARISS Contact, ARISS-US Team
May 19: Fairview Elementary School, Olathe, KS – ARISS Contact, ARISS-US Team

April 20: West Michigan Aviation Academy (WMAA), a Grand Rapids no-tuition high school, hosted an ARISS contact. It took place in the gym, full of 200 students and faculty, listening to Sultan Al Neyadi answer 15 student questions.  Before and after the contact, students came to a podium to present talks on research they’d done on space.  Both the school and the ARISS team livestreamed the event (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIXqiqqK5KU), resulting in 500 viewers.  A ham in Atlanta, GA, created a YouTube of Al Neyadi’s transmission and garnered 83 views. The media came: WKTV, WOOD TV, WXMI TV, and a web news service. During a WKTV interview (https://www.wktvjournal.org/aviation-academy-students-connect-with-international-space-station-astronaut), sophomore Keira Amis expressed excitement, “It was kind of scary in front of all these people, but it was incredibly worth it!” Science teacher Bryan Forney explained, “Every academic department found a way to tie [space] in curriculum … teachers were writing content and presenting lessons related to space. It’s great for students to hear and understand more about what it takes to put something into space, get people to space, what’s required of astronauts, and it helps put that career path in the realm of the possible for our students.” The area ham radio group assisted with radio communication studies and they transported and set up the ham radio station equipment for the contact.

April 21: Montross Middle School, a rural school in Montross, VA with limited resources and opportunities, was thrilled to host an ARISS radio contact for students with Steve Bowen. It was obvious the 12 students chosen to speak had rehearsed well when they asked their 23 questions. The pre-contact programming featured presentations from Principal Leah Segar and Westmoreland County School Superintendent Dr. Michael Perry.  The school district website offered a livestream (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFFmf9e0pZs), as did the school’s YouTube channel.  Over 1,000 students and 107 educators, administrators, and parents viewed the livestream. 5 days following the event, the school’s YouTube report showed 480 views. A copy posted at the ARISS YouTube channel reported 400 more views.  The Westmoreland News ran a nice story about the contact. For almost a year, students engaged in a STEM curriculum focusing on space-based subjects. The Westmoreland Amateur Radio Club mentored students in enjoying getting on the air to make ham radio contacts, learning about ham radio emergency communications practices, and how ham radio would be used to make their ARISS contact.

April 18-20: ARISS-International Chair Frank Bauer led the 2023 ARISS-International Annual Meeting, the first held in person since the start of COVID.  The meeting, held at the European Space Agency’s ESTEC facility in Noordwijk, Netherlands welcomed several ESA Education and ISS program leaders. 20 of the ARISS group traveled from around the globe to attend—delegates, board, and team members—with 9 joining virtually. ARISS Delegates came from three ARISS Regions; other Delegates were online. Meeting sessions covered crew training, crew support, Axiom private astronaut support, a review of the past year’s successes, and strategic discussions on implementing the ARISS 2.0 initiative, which encompasses ARISS as a NASA Implementation Partner, the three ARISS education programs in development (STEREO, STAR, and Student Mission Control) and the planned expansion to include commercial space stations and missions to the moon. Other topics included planning/coordination for the upcoming 40th anniversary of amateur radio on human spaceflight missions, ARISS Ham Video launch and operations readiness status, plans to restart ARISS slow scan (picture downlink) sessions, and new engineering projects, i.e., an ARISS Digital Communicator based on software defined radio technology that could support ISS and Lunar missions.   

April 21:  Schoolchildren at Rostov on Don, Russia engaged in the About Gagarin From Space lessons with the ANO FIRON group (Foundation for Innovative Development of Education and Science).  As with other ARISS-Russian sponsored ARISS contacts, this one was scheduled by Russia’s Mission Control Center-Moscow.  50 people were present for the contact where 9 young participants spoke with Andrey Fedyaev. 

April 22: Students in Portugal from a group of five João de Barros schools (AEJB) in Corroios and also the Escola Secundária da Baixa da Banheira (a vocational training school–VET) in Moita shared an ARISS contact with Steve Bowen. He answered 20 of the students’ questions.  200 people attended the contact as did a web news outlet. While waiting in the Moita school auditorium for the scheduled contact time, students listened to talks presented by the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences on black holes, characteristics of the ISS, and how astronauts live in space. AEJB offers a curriculum in, among other things, science and technology, socioeconomic sciences, visual arts, and computer technologies. Some of the Moita VET school curriculum includes IT, logistics, and pharmacy technician courses. The Amateur Radio Association in Portugal helped support the schools for this contact.

April 21: The Stone Magnet Middle School in Melbourne, FL invited Charlie Sufana to an awards ceremony; he had been their ARISS Technical Mentor for their recent ARISS contact.  30 people attended the celebration honoring volunteers who had done something special for the school this semester.  He networked with community members, answering questions about ARISS.

ARISS Upcoming Events
May 1: Council Rock High School South, Holland, PA – ARISS Contact, ARISS-US Team

April 14: The Augusta Preparatory Day School in Augusta, GA invited parents and students to Family Night to engage in learning activities and look at displays about school projects.  As part of the prep for the school’s upcoming ARISS radio contact in late summer, ARISS educator Rachel Jones and volunteer John Bobbitt set up and staffed an ARISS table. They exhibited a looping video of ARISS images and some items from the ARISS Radio Kit, i.e., Snap Circuits electronic learning kits and slinkies used to demonstrate radio waves. One hundred families and their children came to the event. Elementary and junior high kids stopping at the booth liked manipulating the Snap Circuits’ child-sized electronic components, such as resistors and capacitors. The youth engaged with the electrical circuit that was laid out to act as a Morse code oscillator and key. Rachel and John led kids in understanding how electrons flowing through wires can power devices. Kids quickly realized the fun of sending Morse code messages. Parents took ARISS leaflets; they and the high school youth asked many questions about the upcoming ARISS contact.

April 17: ARISS Director of Education Kathy Lamont introduced Ozbots to her Belmont Elementary School fourth and fifth graders in Prince William County, VA. They learned to code with the bots and Kathy Tweeted about it, resulting in many readers’ interactions. Last week, students at the school enjoyed manipulating ham radio antennas to listen to ARISS contacts in other states.

April 18: The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) and associated groups in Dubai, UAE gave high school students an exciting day with an ARISS radio contact supported by Sultan Al Neyadi, it being the first of several such scheduled ARISS contacts. The space project titled “A Call with Space” is an interactive initiative thanks to a collaboration of the Emirates Literature Foundation with MBRSC to bring space closer to the community.  The agency works to encourage space science and research in the region, offering educational programs that inspire future generations at all education levels about exploration and discovery. 

April 11: Eleven girls at Estes Park (CO) Elementary School, led by ARISS educator Ravi Davis, enjoy making on-the-air ham radio contacts and working toward passing their ham radio license exam. Ravi, who teaches STEAM science classes, said her girls get excited talking to ham operators around the world.  The girls’ quest to achieve the goal of becoming ham operators came from an initiative started by Ravi and the Estes Valley Amateur Radio Club after the school’s 2021 ARISS contact. In a recent post in the Estes Park Trail Gazette, Ravi said, “These students are highly motivated to learn about ham radio and radio science.”  The reporter wrote that by studying ham radio, students get introduced to science, engineering, and computer fields, and that radio science is all around us in every life. The story and its great photos of smiling girls is at  https://www.eptrail.com/2023/04/11/students-study-for-ham-radio-licenses/.

April 10: ARISS Technical Mentor Charlie Sufana attended the Platinum Coast Amateur Radio Society (PCARS) meeting in Melbourne, FL, presenting a program about ARISS. He highlighted the recent ARISS contact at Stone Magnet Middle School in Melbourne, where he led the school as its ARISS Technical Mentor. His talk explained the types of ARISS contacts and how he’d transported and assembled his portable ham radio station to the school with help from area hams, allowing students to speak with Steve Bowen. Following his talk, he answered questions; some listeners asked about helping a school to write a proposal to possibly be selected for a future ARISS contact. Fifty club members attended the talk and 46 others watched a YouTube of the presentation.

ARISS Upcoming Events  
May 1: Council Rock High School South, Holland, PA – ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team                                      

                       

                       

April 7: An ARISS radio contact was hosted at Collège Saint-Anatoile in Salins-Les-Bains, a rural area in the Franche Comté region of France.  During the contact, Steve Bowen answered 20 student questions. 100 students, professors, parents, and city and regional officials attended the event or watched the livestream from other rooms, as did 60 students at a neighboring school.  Within two days’ time, 2,000 people had viewed the recording. The event was well covered by media—newspapers Le Progres and L’Est Républicain, TV station France3 (their short video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at8fGjEwXSY), and radio stations France Bleu and RCF.  The school had incorporated many STEM projects into the curriculum. Members of the area and regional amateur radio clubs sponsored workshops for students to introduce them to amateur radio communications, radio direction-finding, amateur radio satellites, wave propagation, and tracking the ISS.

April: Council Rock High School South in Holland, PA is scheduled for their ARISS contact early in May. Teachers prepared the students for the contact through special space-related curriculum and projects. The two photos below show part of the work students did to build and set up ham radio antennas with some of their teachers and members of the area’s Warminster Amateur Radio Club. Students also enjoyed getting on the air to make ham radio contacts.  ARISS learned last week that US Senator Bob Casey plans to attend the school’s ARISS contact.

April 8-15: ARISS-Russia carried out six ARISS radio contacts under the About Gagarin In Space education program. The schools scheduled by MCC-Moscow included Vologda College of Communications and Information Technologies in Vologda with crew member Dimitri Petelin; Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University in Kaliningrad with crew member Sergey Prokopyev; Ural State University of Railway Engineering in Yekaterinburg with Sergey Prokopyev; Admiral D.N. Senyavin Marine Technical Academy in St. Petersburg with crew member Andrey Fedyaev; MBOU School #5 for Students with Disabilities in Shchelkovo with Sergey Prokopyev, and MBOU Secondary School #1 in Vyborg with Andrew Fedyaev.  Two of these contacts, those at Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg, took place on Cosmonautics Day.

March 31: ARISS educator Drew Deskur, director of the Kopernik Observatory and Science Center in Vestal, NY offers space education presentations and classes to area youth. He helped students listen on ham radio to an ARISS radio contact at Stone Magnet Middle School in Melbourne, FL.  His students heard Steve Bowen’s answers to students’ questions as the ISS passed over Vestal, then Vestal students discussed the questions and answers.  Meantime, ARISS educator Kathy Lamont did the same thing with her students at Belmont Elementary School in Prince William County, VA. She had her students read the Stone Magnet Middle School students’ questions, and then her kids listened to Bowen’s replies as the ISS passed overhead. She recorded her students in order to post a video on Twitter; the video got 202 Views!

ARISS Upcoming Events 
Apr 18: Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre, Dubai, UAE – ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team