NASA Chooses Student Teams to Test Experiments on Balloonsat
CLEVELAND -- NASA selected four high school teams as finalists in the
Balloonsat High Altitude Flight competition. Their experiments will
be the payload aboard a NASA weather balloon that will launch May
25-27. The balloon will be sent to the near space environment of the
stratosphere, an altitude of approximately 100,000 feet. The
competition is hosted by NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
The high school teams and the names of their experiments are:
Charlottesville High School, Charlottesville, Va. -- "The Effects of
Near-Space Conditions on Escherichia Coli Bacteria"
Upper St. Clair High School, Upper St. Clair, Pa. -- "The Effect of
Near-Space Conditions on Microbial Life Forms"
Stansbury High School, West Jordan, Utah -- "Thermal Moisture
Penetration"
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Durham, N.C. --
"Variations on Polyethylene Hard Disk Radiation Shields"
During flight days, the teams will release, track and recover their
experiments. They also will present a report on their findings at
Glenn's Balloonsat Symposium.
One team's experiment will be judged the best, and Glenn
representatives will present an award to them at their school next
fall.
These four finalists were selected from 10 teams of students in grades
nine through 12 from around the country that submitted proposals.
They each received funding for development of their experiment and
travel expenses for four students and an advisor to attend flight
days at Glenn.
The Balloonsat High Altitude Flight program is one of many educational
outreach programs to stimulate interest in science, technology,
engineering and math disciplines critical to NASA's future missions.
The competition is sponsored by the Educational Programs Office at
Glenn; Teaching from Space, a NASA education office at NASA's Johnson
Space Center in Houston; and the Ohio Space Grant Consortium,
Cleveland.
For additional information about Balloonsat, visit:
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/
For more information about NASA's education programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/education
Source: NASA
