UPPER CANADA DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD
UCDSB Students Aim for the Stars in Space Experiment Challenge

Students from three Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB) schools are taking their learning to new heights - into orbit, in fact. Their ideas and curiosity could soon be tested in space as part of a real scientific mission.

Grade 5 and 6 students from Mississippi Mills area schools are competing in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) Mission 21 to the International Space Station (ISS) - a community-wide STEM education program that challenges students to write, design and propose a microgravity experiment. The winning experiment will be launched to the ISS, where astronauts will interact with the experiment.

Once the experiment returns to Earth, students will analyze and compare the results with the same experiment conducted under Earth's gravity. Participating schools within the UCDSB include Naismith Memorial Public School, Pakenham Public School and R. Tait. McKenzie Public School. Only 2 of the 21 communities that are submitting Mission 21 experiment proposals are in Canada, with the other board located in Edmonton, Alberta.

Students at R. Tait researched and planted various seeds to test growth rates and mediums on Earth, while experiments by Pakenham students included dissolving candy and creating sugar crystals in space.

On November 10, community judges with science backgrounds reviewed 43 entries from all three UCDSB schools and selected three finalists. Another round of judging taking place in December will determine which project will blast off to the ISS.

The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program [or SSEP] is a program of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in the U.S. and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education internationally. It is enabled through a strategic collaboration with Rhodium Scientific, America's first commercial space biotech company. SSEP is the first pre-college STEM education program that is both a U.S. national initiative and implemented as an on-orbit commercial space endeavor

Research reported herein was supported by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, Inc. and NASA under agreement number 80JSC018M0005 and with Rhodium Scientific under agreement number UA-2021-8282.