The Awty International School
Houston, Texas
Check out our documents and status page to see our progress...
CASIS - The Center for Advancement of Science in Space
Sunita Williams of NASA provides a tour of the ISS orbital laboratory
A group of Awty International 5th grade students explores the Ardulab and Sparkfun kit from the teacher training. Students are excited about the chance to become true space scientists!!!
Alli skypes with Awty's 5th grade class to answer questions about CASIS, microgravity, and our experiment into space! Very cool...bringing technology into the classroom!
During our computer basics class, students practiced their typing skills and created a bulletin board with research they had previously collected about the International Space Station. The bulletin is filled with many different, fascinating facts about the ISS.
After watching a brief video on yeast growth, students were asked to record questions and information they found might be pertinent to our project. Two videos, linked here, the class really enjoyed! After, we had the chance to view these microscopic yeast cells!
WHAT DO YEAST LIKE TO EAT
YEAST GROWTH
WHAT DO YEAST LIKE TO EAT
YEAST GROWTH
This year we have a unique connection to our newly discovered world of microgravity and our curriculum of the human body! A father from our 5th grade class, Dr. Jose Ignacio Suarez, is a neurologist and a researcher in the areas of brain-heart interactions and space-adaptation syndrome. He is also a member of the Institute for Space Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine and NASA/NSBRI researcher. He was able to connect what we are learning in the classroom with both the human body and our CASIS project. Students learned many interesting things about the ISS and how our bodies react while in space. They also learned the importance of research conducted in space the the many different advancements we have made for people on Earth from research performed in microgravity. We are VERY THANKFUL Dr. Suarez was able to share his expertise with our group!
This week, Mrs. Smith's 5th grade class received a visit from our mentors. Colton Schimank and Austin Swick are students who work for Dr. Joseph Morgan at Texas A&M University. They do student research and development for Dr. Morgan in the Mobile Integrated Solutions Laboratory, aka MISL at A&M. They have worked with NASA, NDC groups, HUNCH and other various groups in developing technology and helping other students learn about
engineering. Colton and Austin helped our Awty students to better understand the hardware we are using and how to make the connections inside the ardulab. The students were very excited to meet our mentors, who will be helping us throughout the course of our project.
engineering. Colton and Austin helped our Awty students to better understand the hardware we are using and how to make the connections inside the ardulab. The students were very excited to meet our mentors, who will be helping us throughout the course of our project.
Our class would like to introduce Ann Harper, our Middle School Lab Technician. She worked very hard with our yeast specialists to teach them proper techniques in pouring agar plates and streaking our "yeastie beasties"! She was great with the students and they all learned much about the process. They were amazed at how many steps went into creating the plates. Before meeting with Ms. Harper, they didn't realize how important the idea of sterilization was for our project. We would also like to thank Dr. Brian Stephens at the University of Houston Clear Lake for providing us with the agar used in class. This was an exciting week for the students!
Over our holiday break our yeast grew, and grew, and GREW! We have had the chance to look at which the best growth media would be and how the yeast will grow over a period of 30 days. Even though we encountered some mold growth around day 20, most of the yeast has remained untouched by the moldd and still viable for research upon return to Earth. Thank you to our A&M mentors for the hardware help! Our groups will begin engineering the hardware and learning about connections...and all the lingo! We also have a fellow student at Awty who will be helping us with our Arduino code as well. It was hard to come back after break, but the class is very excited about our progress.
French Morning - Texas
Check out the link below! Keep up the great work all Awty 5th and 8th grade students! BON TRAVAIL!
http://frenchmorning.com/awty-international-school-tete-station-spatiale-internationale/
Check out the link below! Keep up the great work all Awty 5th and 8th grade students! BON TRAVAIL!
http://frenchmorning.com/awty-international-school-tete-station-spatiale-internationale/
AWTY WELCOMES HILLARIE DAVIS
Hillarie Davis, our external evaluator working on behalf of CASIS, came to visit our classroom today! It was very exciting for the students to share all of the knowledge they have learned as we have worked diligently on the science portion of our project. She had the opportunity to work with and talk with students as they collaborated in their specialist groups. We hope she walked away with a great understanding of our project and how EXCITED we are about putting it all together. Next week is a BIG week for our class. Mrs. Smith will travel to Texas A & M University to visit with our mentors to learn more about the connectivity of hardware and software. The following week we will be very busy...building!
Hillarie Davis, our external evaluator working on behalf of CASIS, came to visit our classroom today! It was very exciting for the students to share all of the knowledge they have learned as we have worked diligently on the science portion of our project. She had the opportunity to work with and talk with students as they collaborated in their specialist groups. We hope she walked away with a great understanding of our project and how EXCITED we are about putting it all together. Next week is a BIG week for our class. Mrs. Smith will travel to Texas A & M University to visit with our mentors to learn more about the connectivity of hardware and software. The following week we will be very busy...building!
Last Friday I, (Mrs. Smith) made the trip to College Station and had the chance to work with our mentors in their workshop. I worked with Colton, Austin, Dakota and Dr. Morgan to learn more about the engineer and design of our ardulab. It was a great experience to see first hand how hard this group of students are working to help us successfully collect data during our experiment. I brough back our sensors which were attached to the insert for the ardulab. It was very exciting to see the temperature and humidity sensor colelct and deliver data. I know my class is anxious to start testing...after our Winter Break we will be in the home stretch!
HERE WE ARE! In the home stretch of our time with CASIS until summer ends! We have really enjoyed our journey. Our shirts have arrives...check us out! We really do love yeast and don't even mind the smell anymore. Our class has begun to determine which agar to use: coconut, or without coconut...that is the question! While we have had some new additions that we are still trying to iron out (such as a real time clock, and some new wiring), we are well on our way to summer vacation and being prepared for launch in October. Click on the following link and see what amazing things we have learned...http://abc13.co/1k3iCFx.
Natasha Morgan kisses her plate for Good Luck! Students who were part of the yeast specialist team returned to 5th grade to streak their final y- petri plate before launch!
Head of Middle School, Tom Beuscher, picks a plate at random from the several that were streaked by the students. Mr. Beuscher quizzed the students on what they had learned during the project...and he received quite an earful! It was amazing to see how the students learned and remembered so much from the project! It was a very proud teacher moment for me! :)
Hand off! Projects were placed into cold stowage and handed off to Alli Westover!
God Speed Alli!!!!
GO FOR LAUNCH!!!