A microgravity experiment developed by a group of Texarkana ISD fifth graders is heading to the International Space Station in the summer/fall of 2024, following a rigorous selection process through the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP).
This fall, all fifth-grade students at Martha and Josh Morriss Mathematics & Engineering Elementary School, and all sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade Texas Middle School students enrolled in Science Honors spent six weeks learning about microgravity experimental design and developed more than 140 proposals that competed for inclusion in the SSEP Mission 18 to the International Space Station. The top three projects from TISD then submitted the top three projects to the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) for consideration by the SSEP Mission 18 Step 2 Review Board.
“Will Normal Strength Concrete Keeps Its Structure in Microgravity,” the experiment created by TISD fifth graders Lynnley Galloway, Lizzy LaGrone, Issac Steel, and Cooper Woods, supervised by Mrs. Marie Goodwin, is now bound for the International Space Station in June 2024.
Texarkana ISD is one of 37 communities in three countries (USA, Ukraine, and Canada) participating in this year’s SSEP program. The program allows students to design and propose actual microgravity experiments conducted aboard the International Space Station.
Following the December announcement and under SSEP guidelines, the Morriss students will continue to refine and optimize their experiment’s design to be cleared for the mission.
About the SSEP:
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 partnership with Nanoracks LLC, which is working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement to utilize the International Space Station as a National Laboratory.
