By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
Students at St. Bernard’s showcased their science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills Thursday night including one project that encompassed each grade at the school.
Earlier in the year students from Kindergarten through eighth grade worked together on a planned mission to Mars. St. Bernard’s Principal Mary Obringer spoke about what class responsibilities for the project.
“The sixth through eighth graders did the actual colonizing of Mars. So they had to figure out the government, how they were going to get there, who they were going to take, and the third through fifth grade students did biospheres, and the K (Kindergarten) and grade one students made space suits, so they went through the whole design process for that,” Obringer explained.
Students Claudia Pifher, Max Phillips, Alex Kenny, and Jenna Wilson spoke about the mission to Mars project, and related what they liked most about the experience.
“Learning more about the planet and working together,” Pifher noted.
“I liked picking out the designs of the biospheres and picking whose was better,” Kenny explained.
“I liked designing the presentation, because I like computers and technology and that was just what that part of the project was,” Phillips said.
“Honestly, I liked being judged from Mr. (Brian) Willis from NASA. That was new to me,” Wilson added. “It was a little nerve racking, but it was fun.”
The students then spoke about some of the difficulties that they had faced with the project.
“There is a lot of trial and error with designing things, and figuring out that Mars has a lot of different things than Earth does, so you have to figure things out as you go along,” Pifher said.
“You have to know that a lot of people have other ideas, and you can’t just do everything yourself,” Kenny noted.
“Recognizing other’s ideas, and distributing the work evenly,” Phillips included.
“Putting everything together in the end and making it all work,” Wilson added.
After the students finished their Mars project they made a presentation of their work to members of the aerospace industry- Brian Willis of NASA, as well as Mac Zborowski. Willis explained.
“Working with NASA, I am familiar with the Mars mission planning, and things of that nature. And so it was a lot of fun, and it was actually uplifting to talk to the kids about their concepts for filters instead of hard masks to separate the Martian atmosphere into breathable air, and to hear them talk about the biomes, and how they recognize even at that age that having a place – if you are all living together that close – you need a place that is set aside for people to be alone, to recharge, cool off, and be alone,” Willis said.
“So we critiqued that. We had some forms and we judged them, and of course, we don’t want to turn away, or off, some of the ideas. One of the groups had come up and said ‘it is going to take too long to get to Mars,’ so there is this concept that NASA used to have that they don’t follow called Nuclear Thermal Rocketry, it would get us there in half the time. They dug that up on their own. That is just awesome.”
Willis noted that he and Zborowski walked away from the project optimistic about the students’ work
“We both went away elated with the excitement and the intensity and the insight, and the desire that the next generation showed,” Willis said. “Because if anything, even if we don’t go to Mars, they are going to turn that around, and look at the planet and say it is this hard to get to Mars, and we don’t have the technology, we better take care of what we have. So as adults, who knows how it will play out. It will be interesting to see.”
Zborowski gave credit to Obringer for the depth that the project encompassed the students.
“The credit has to go to Mary and her team, because this is the first time that I seen a school go this much in depth, and then have so much involvement from the students on something some might say as far-fetched as a mission to Mars, really getting their imagination going on top level problems such as what am I going to eat, where I am I going to put a microphone, what am I going to wear, is a really, really good idea.
“Getting to these kids in terms of higher level of problem solving, it is a brilliant idea,” said Zborowski.
Zborowksi brought in beta cloth used on space suits from 1969 which held the life support system, microphones, and water for the astronauts on the Apollo missions. He noted that the missions to space not only needed engineers, but also seamstresses for the suits that the astronauts would wear.
The evening wasn’t all about space exploration as students also showed examples of sound absorption and reflection, and even robotics. Students Mia McDougal and Lizzie Newman spoke about the Ehove Lego League competition in which students build and program robots using Lego building blocks. The group of McDougal, Newman and Max Phillips built a robot named “Botomniscient.”
McDougal spoke about a few of the difficulties in building and programing the robot.
“So, if I have this (robot) and if we want it to go one way, but it doesn’t want to turn, we have to figure out how to make it go the way we want it to. Plus you have to figure out how to stabilize blocks, which is really hard, so it doesn’t shake and become detached.”
McDougal and Newman spoke about their favorite part in their foray into robotics.
“I like working together because we are friends, plus we get to spend time together after school, and it is fun to tinker with the different pieces,” McDougal said.
“My favorite is the actual experience, because I never got to work with Legos like this, until this I had just used regular Legos,” Newman added.