Tag Archives: Space

Unlikely links between school, space & war

Russia invades Ukraine, retreats from ISS Minnehaha’s annual space-station project may take new directions in future years Testing shark skin on bacteria growth, growing calcium carbonate crystals and trying to revive dried algae have all been experiments worked on and sent into space by the Minnehaha ISS (International Space Station) team. But with recent news …

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Tell Me About It – Season 1 Episode 4: Joy Reist

Tell Me About It Season 1, Episode 4: Joy Reist Host Ann Oakman interviews Chemistry teacher and International Space Station (ISS) Team Leader Joy Reist about the ISS Team’s 2022 experiment.

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Book a flight!

Is the commercialization of space travel worth the costs?   On July 20, 1969, over 600 million people were glued to their television sets as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. With their enormously popular lunar broadcast, Armstrong and Aldrin effectively declared the United States victorious in the …

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Shooting for Mars

SpaceX has partially successful launch as the company makes steps toward interplanetary travel On December 8, 2020 in Cameron County, Texas, the SpaceX Starship SN8 successfully “ascended, transitioned propellant, and performed its landing flip maneuver with precise flap control to reach its landing point” before exploding upon landing due to …

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Building space projects and gardens during a pandemic

ISS team looks to tackle three projects this year Due to COVID-19 restrictions and social distance mandates, the International Space Station (ISS) class has faced challenges beyond the usual obstacle of designing an experiment to be conducted in space. In order to engage each student in the large class while …

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ISS Update

Project returns to Earth after 3 months On April 6, the Minnehaha Academy International Space Station experiment returned to Earth aboard the Space X CRS- 20, splashing down into the Pacific Ocean. The project, which researched the effect of a microgravity environment on the growth of calcium carbonate crystals, will …

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Plants in space

The Plant Team of Minnehaha’s ARE class is studying the effect of microgravity on phototropism; i.e. how microgravity affects orientation of plants toward or away from a light source. A plant will first orient itself by its sense of gravity; this is why plants grown in the dark grow similarly …

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I.S.S. team stays positive after Falcon 9 explodes

  The I.S.S. team reflects on their journey after the destruction of their experiment in the launch explosion “I was in Switzerland. It was the afternoon of the launch,” said science teacher and one of last year’s International Space Station (I.S.S.) mentors Nancy Cripe. “We got back to the hotel …

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Year two in space, year one in class

Minnehaha’s International Space Station (ISS) team creates their experiment during class time On Feb. 25, NASA astronaut Dr. Tom Marshburn gave a presentation during Tuesday assembly period describing his three months and twenty-six days on the International Space Station (ISS). But for members of the Applied Research in Engineering (A.R.E.) …

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M.A. hopes to enter space project

International Space Station invites student involvement Next spring Minnehaha Academy will have the opportunity to send a science experiment to the International Space Station. This will be the first time a school outside of California has taken part in the program. Past projects have included mixing concrete in space and …

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