Winners of Downingtown STEM Academy SSEP Announced

The winning team for the Downingtown STEM Academy’s Student Spaceflight Experiment Program (SSEP) was announced Monday afternoon at a reception to honor the three finalist student teams.

After months of experimental design, proposal preparation, and both a local and national review process, one STEM Academy experiment was selected to be among eleven nationally for astronauts to conduct during a six-week stay onboard the International Space Station this coming fall.

The winning team of ninth grade students included Miranda McMillen, Christina Murray, Jenni Faust, Meghan Joyce, Avni Gulrajani, Connor McGrath, Cecilia Padilla and Santina Zouras. Their experiment is designed to study the release rate of a common medication in microgravity.

In addition to sending their experiment to be completed on the International Space Station, the team will conduct the same experiment here on earth to have a point of comparison as to the effect of microgravity on these medications. They plan to present their findings at a summer 2014 conference held at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.

The winners of the Mission Patch Design Competition were honored as well on Monday. The Mission Patch Design Competition was meant to broaden the reach of the SSEP and engage students from each of the 15 Downingtown Schools in the hopes of inspiring the next generation of explorers. Throughout the district, 560 patch designs were submitted. After a district-wide staff vote the designs submitted by Jason Lipow of Downingtown High School East and Nirali Vahalia of East Ward Elementary were selected as those that best represent the Downingtown school community.

The reception also included a brief address by the founder and Center Director of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education and SSEP program director, Dr. Jeff Goldstein. In his remarks Dr. Goldstein emphasized the need for continued nurturing of the natural human instincts of curiosity and questioning.

The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) is a flagship program of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE), a non-profit organization focused on inspiring the next generation of American scientists and engineers. At its core, the SSEP provides an authentic problem-based learning opportunity for all students that are engaged in the program.

Making this opportunity possible was a combination of both local and national donors. Local donors included: West Pharmaceutical Services Inc., Bentley Systems Inc., Litts Quality Technologies, Analytical Graphics Inc., and Trans Lunar Designs. National donors Subaru of America Inc., the NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium, and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space specifically targeted funds to support this endeavor here in Downingtown.