Seven William S. Cohen School students worked very hard during the month of October to submit a proposal to the NASA TechRise Student Challenge. The group delegated roles to design the experiment, research sensors, write and edit various parts of the proposal, and organize when to meet to work on the proposal. The students researched the process of fermentation and what causes bread to rise, learning a lot about yeast in the process. Their teamwork and hard work paid off!
On January 21, the team was announced as 1 of 25 winners for a spot on a NASA-sponsored high-altitude balloon flight carrying the 25 projects up to 70,000-90,000 feet—the edge of space! The group from Cohen competed with high school and middle school teams from across the nation.
The team will receive a prize package consisting of $1500 and a starter kit, which includes a flight box to build their experiment. The team will also have access to technical support and weekly team meetings with Future Engineers experts during the build phase of their project.
The project, "Yeast to the Stars," will launch yeast up into near space. The project will track the location, gases, temperature, and radiation the yeast is exposed to in order to see how the yeast is affected by the conditions. The group will be presenting their project in the NASA TechRise Student Showcase on May 15th.
Congratulations to Jack, Aiden, Abby, Avram, Case, Felipe, and Chirath for their amazing work on this project. To be selected as 1 of 25 high-altitude balloon teams from across the nation is remarkable. And, thank you to Mrs. Pietrak, 7th grade science teacher, for working with this team of talented students.