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From Interlake to space for winning science project

By: Nick Martin

Posted: 09/22/2012 8:01 AM | Comments: 0

"This is a first for Canada, and a first for a Canadian school division' -- Woodlands Elementary School teacher Maria Nickel, with fellow space camp veteran, student Dawson Procter. (WAYNE.GLOWACKI/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

To boldly go where no Canadian school division has gone before.

Space — that’s where 450 kids in grades 5 and 6 throughout the Interlake School Division are competing to go.

Specifically, to send one science project to the International Space Station next spring, where an astronaut will perform the experiment and report back to students on Earth.

Students from Woodlands, Balmoral, Stonewall, eight schools in all are taking part.

"It’s pretty amazing," Woodlands Elementary School teacher Maria Nickel said Friday. "This is a first for Canada, and a first for a Canadian school division."

Nickel is one spaced-out teacher — she has attended space camp in the U.S., and then later qualified to attend an advanced space camp. Her kids at Woodlands are enthusiastic members of the space club Nickel started.

So how on earth did Interlake students get hooked up with the International Space Station?
"Twitter is responsible for that," Nickel said with a laugh.

She was tweeting in search of an astronaut willing to Skype with her space club, when Nickel stumbled across a competition for schools to devise experiments to be performed on the space station.

With the help of a $10,000 grant from the provincial government, Nickel entered the competition, which will select one experiment from each of 16 regions — 15 in the U.S., the 16th being the Interlake as one Canadian region.

"We’re guaranteed a spot. This is not a maybe, we’re going," said a delighted Nickel.
"It’s the grades 5 and 6 students in our entire school division. They’ve been busy at it since Sept. 12. They’re talking about microgravity, what can we fit into something the size of a test tube," she said.

Eventually, one experiment will be chosen from all the ideas in the school division, and all 16 experiments will be launched to the space station in the spring of 2013, where astronauts will carry them out.

"They’ll do it within their work schedule," Nickel said.

Woodlands Elementary School will officially kick off the young rocket scientists’ campaign Monday morning.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

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