Iroquois students are on a mission to send an experiment to International Space Station

Iroquois students in fifth through eighth grades are working on out-of-this-world experiments.

And one of their experiments literally will be.

Their top experiment will be launched to the International Space Station in 2023. Astronauts will conduct the experiment as students compare results on Earth.

Iroquois Elementary and Junior/Senior High are among 39 schools or universities nationwide designing experiments to test the effects of microgravity — or seeming weightlessness in space — on seed germination, crystal growth, chemical processes, physiology, the life cycles of microorganisms, cell biology and growth, food studies, and other topics as part of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program, launched by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education in 2010.

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"It would be super cool if our experiment goes to the space station," said Lexi Laskowski, an Iroquois sixth-grader.

Lexi and sixth-graders Kyra Gregory and Isabella Wiley are working on an experiment to see how food colors mix in vegetable oil in space.

"I'd scream if ours went," said fifth-grader Andreanna Hedglin.

With sixth-grader Mark Genest and fifth-graders Ivy Meyers and McKenzie Richardson, Andreanna is working on an experiment to test the ph, or acidity, of sucrose in space.

Fueling student curiosity

Students chose their own topic to study. After research, they are finalizing experiments that can be carried to astronauts in various chambers of a tiny tube— called a fluid-mixing enclosure — along with instructions to shake, stir or otherwise prepare the contents, and when.

"It's all based on student curiosity and what interests them," said Iroquois Elementary School Principal Jennifer Foutz.

"It's really been great to see how motivated they are," said fifth-grade math and science teacher Erica Luke. Teachers met over the summer to learn about the program to help students get the most from it.

Students were divided into small groups to design experiments based on their interests, including how bacteria affects foods in space.

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"We want to see if bacteria grows faster or differently in different kinds of yogurt in space," said fifth-grader Olivia York. Also working on the project are fifth-grader James Pattison and sixth-graders Ryan Reynolds and Elijah Kidd.

"Students aren't grouped with friends or even by grade," Foutz said. "A bonus is that they're making new friends with similar interests."

Students work on their experiments during their specials periods. They are finalizing their work into written reports detailing what they hope to learn, and how they will learn it. A community review board — including Penn State Behrend faculty — in November will choose the top three experiments to send to the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education for judging.

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"Only one will be chosen. It's like the 'Hunger Games' of space," Foutz said.

The top experiment will be launched on Mission 17 to the International Space Station in late spring or early summer. Chosen by school officials, two mission patches, commemorating the mission and sewn onto clothing or collected — one designed by an Iroquois Elementary student, the other by a student at Iroquois Junior/Senior High — also will be launched to commemorate the mission. Both patches later will be returned to the schools.

A different lesson learned

Iroquois students participated in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program once before, in 2014.

Their top experiment was among 18 lost in the explosion of an unmanned rocket with 5,000 pounds of cargo bound for the space station. The rocket blew up seconds after launch from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Oct. 28, 2014.

"There's no guarantee in science and exploration," Iroquois schools Superintendent Shane Murray said of the explosion. "Sometimes there's failure, and you've got to overcome it."

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The experiment, designed to study a sea star's statocyst system, the system governing balance and orientation, and how the human vestibular system provides balance and orientation in microgravity, was recreated and successfully sent to the space station in 2016.

The students who designed the experiment detailed their work at the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education in Washington, D.C., in 2014.

Contact Valerie Myers at vmyers@timesnews.com.