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Science Students' NASA Project

Twelve students from the Ogdensburg Public School experienced a once in a lifetime opportunity when their science project with Sterling Hill was accepted by NASA for the science research mission aboard Columbia STS-107.

Background

The NASA project started when Claude Larson, science teacher for grades six through eight, helped a group of science enrichment students create a challenging science project to put the first fluorescent minerals in space. The project came about as a science enrichment opportunity after Claude participated in a training workshop with NASA. As one of only 25 selected from 550 individuals to spend two weeks at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Claude met scientists, research engineers, received a behind-the-scenes tour, and discussed space experiment modules with Chuck Brodell from the Space Experiment Module Programs and learned they fly ten missions each year and carry various experiments

Getting Started

After returning to the classroom, Claude met with the school's science enrichment teacher and requested a list of students in grades six and seven who might be interested in a special science project. Claude then met with twenty students and offered the project as minerals to fly on a shuttle mission. She gave each student a letter, explained the project, and suggested they go home and think about it, making it clear that the project required a great deal of time above and beyond the regular school day. Twelve students immediately volunteered. They named their project the Ogdensburg Glowing Rocks Experiment (OGRE).

Claude held meetings at the school with the students, some as early as 7:30 a.m., that allowed about 40 minutes before the first class of the day. Other meetings were held after school as Claude guided students through writing a proposal to submit to NASA. It took six meetings to complete the write-up of their proposal. Occasionally, evening meetings were held for several hours when needed.

Real Science Begins

On Monday, January 7, 2002, despite a heavy snowfall, Claude and the OGRE team headed for Sterling Hill to proceed with the next phase of their project, which ended up being a nine-hour day at the mine working alongside scientists.

In interviews with Dr. Earl R. Verbeek, curator of the Thomas S. Warren Museum of Fluorescence, he explained the students hoped to determine if exposing the parcel of fluorescent minerals to the rigors of space would alter their fluorescence in any way. Dr. Verbeek said they involved the students in a full day of real science, not some canned demonstration, but a process whereby the students were involved in every aspect of specimen selection and preparation for the shuttle flight.

Project Process

First, the students learned the fundamentals of mineral fluorescence, said Dr. Verbeek. Don Halterman, associate of the Warren Museum, illustrated additional mineral properties such as polarized fluorescence and the tendency of fluorite, a piece of which would be aboard the shuttle, to shatter when its temperature is suddenly changed.

Students chiseled at the mine wall to collect samples that were later sawed in half. One half went aboard the shuttle and the other remained on Earth as a control. “We had a diamond-blade trim saw on hand for this job,” said Dr. Verbeek.

Then, all specimens were taken to an adjacent room for photographing under ultraviolet light.

“Fortune was with us this day,” Dr. Verbeek said, “for it was only by happenstance that the museum had a spectrophotometer on hand for measuring the fluorescence of each sample.”

Not only did we have a spectrophotometer, we also had a spectroscopist, for Sherry Hemmingsen, a professor of chemistry at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, had flown in to be with the students. For nearly two hours Sherry showed each student what a spectrophotometer does and how to use it. Each student measured the emission spectrum of his or her own specimen. Collectively these data serve as our baseline: they show what the fluorescence of each specimen was like before the shuttle launch, explained Dr. Verbeek. After the flight, the specimens would be measured again. Most students were measuring their own spectra within 10 minutes.

OGRE-1: Massive opal from Virgin Valley, Nevada. The yellow-green fluorescence is activated by the uranyl ion, (UO2)2+.
OGRE-2: Coarse-grained brown willemite with minor franklinite, Sterling mine, Ogdensburg, New Jersey. The yellow-green fluorescence is activated by manganese.
OGRE-3: Very coarse-grained brown willemite, Sterling mine, Ogdensburg, New Jersey. Activator same as OGRE-2.
OGRE-4: Massive orange-brown scheelite with quartz, Hollinger mine, Canada. The bright, pale blue fluorescence is due to the tungstate ion, WO42+.
OGRE-5: Coarse, bladed mass of trona, Tg Soda Ash mine, Wyoming. The fluorescence almost certainly is due to organic impurities.
OGRE-6: Willemite in granular ore, Sterling mine, Ogdensburg, New Jersey. Activator same as OGRE-2.
OGRE-7: Massive gray sodalite from near Bancroft, Ontario, Canada, showing a golden yellow fluorescence activated by disulfide ion, S2-.
OGRE-8: Powdery coating of hydrozincite on aragonite; locality unknown. The activator of the bright blue fluorescence of the hydrozincite is unknown, but lead has recently been implicated.
OGRE-9: Massive green fluorite, locality unknown. Shows deep bluish-violet fluorescence due to europium ion, Eu2+.
OGRE-10: Coarse-grained, pale green scapolite (wernerite), near Grenville, Quebec. The bright golden yellow fluorescence is activated by disulfide ion, S2-.
OGRE-11: Massive, pale tan hardystonite, Franklin, New Jersey. The activator of the deep violet fluorescence may be lead, but the evidence to date is not definitive.
OGRE-12: Transparent, pale green calcite from near Monterey, Mexico. This is a Terlingua-type calcite that shows a bright blue fluorescence under shortwave ultraviolet light and a bright pink fluorescence under longwave ultraviolet light. The activators of both responses remain unknown.

In addition to the spectrophotometer scans run by the students themselves, four additional sets of scans were run for each sample during the ensuing two weeks, explained Dr. Verbeek. The multiple scans allow us to judge the relative effects of several additional factors that affect the machine-measured fluorescence of each mineral, including slight changes in sample positioning, instrument drift as the components heat and cool, and changes in the angle of the sample probe. Knowledge of the collective variation in fluorescence due to these and other factors increases our odds of recognizing space-induced changes, if any.

Experimental Design

One half of each rock went on the space flight and the other half remained on Earth for comparison when the shuttle would return from its 16-day mission. The students intended to compare the rocks before and after the flight.

School Support for Real Science

Although Claude handled this science project herself with the students, she had the support of her colleagues who filled in as needed when Claude took phone calls from news media and NASA related to the project and made the OGRE team available for interviews.

Leadership

School Principals and Superintendents play a valuable role in making local resources available for teachers as an extension of the classroom and building programs into curriculums for comprehensive learning opportunities.

National Coverage

Lucky Duck Productions for the Nickelodeon cable channel in New York City learned of the OGRE team's NASA project and Segment Producer Jason Bolling met the group at Sterling Hill on November 6. Jason video taped a tour at the National Historic Site and interviewed team members Nicole and Amanda, who had submitted a suggestion for a news report on their project to be aired on My Backyard, since Sterling Hill is in their backyard. The special news report was selected for one of the final Nick News shows, a children's newsmagazine style program hosted by Linda Ellerbee, executive producer of Nick News and Lucky Duck Productions. The segment aired January 5, 2003.

Science Project Ends in Tragedy

On February 1, 2003, en route to its planned landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:16 a.m. EST, space shuttle Columbia STS-107 crossed over the coast of California at about 8:52 a.m. EST but broke up 207,135 feet over east central Texas while traveling 12,500 mph (Mach 18.3) when reentering the Earth's atmosphere. Although the loss of the crew was felt worldwide, the OGRE team members, as young explorers in the small town of Ogdensburg, were deeply affected.

Children Turn Heartbreak Into A Keepsake

The OGRE team members were so affected by the loss of the astronauts and loss to their families that Claude helped them turn it into something positive by finding a way to make a positive impact on the children of the astronauts. They sent a letter of thanks to the editors of local papers for the support and enthusiasm over their educational efforts with the NASA project. They asked for public financial support and received an overwhelming response. The team hoped to send a token gift to the children as a unique reminder of their science experiment and keepsake. Donations arrived at the school and the nearby Franklin Mineral Museum donated UV lamps and batteries. People in the town of Ogdensburg held a fundraiser that helped defray the costs of the trip for the OGRE team members and their families to deliver the gifts to NASA. A remaining $1,500 was placed into a scholarship fund for the children of the Columbia astronauts that Claude explained the funds go to education, raised by kids.

The gift packages contained a selection of minerals like the ones that were aboard the shuttle, copies of local newspaper articles written about their project, Sterling Hill's newsletter highlighting the team's work with scientists, a chart of minerals, letter to each family, a CD with a PowerPoint® presentation of an overview of the project, and letter written by each team member along with each one's picture, and a letter from their teacher.

On March 14, eight of the team members and their families traveled to deliver the kits to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island in Virginia. While there, they toured the facility and the U.S. Navy provided a bus that allowed the group to tour the base and launch site. A highlight of the day was a surprise meeting with Bonnie Predmore Matters, who worked on the space Hubble Telescope and was a 1962 graduate of the Ogdensburg Public School, the same one the OGRE team attends. She took the time to discuss with the students the importance of school and significance of attending college to follow your dreams. Claude received a letter last year from Matters, who had read about the students' science experiment. The special gifts for the Columbia astronauts' children were mailed from NASA on March 17 to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas for distribution to the families.

Claude explained the minerals sent into space have not yet been found although some parts of canisters have been found. The team plans to display the mineral halves that were left behind on Earth. Some will be displayed at the Ogdensburg school, some at Sterling Hill, and other locations.

Krista and Rebecca wrap a gift to be sent to Pictured are eight of the 12 OGRE team members at the Wallops Johnson Space Center in Texas for Proud of the Past, Prepared for the Future wall with a sounding Columbia families. rocket.