Last Upated: May 14, 2019
By Andrew Campanella with Savanna Buckner
NASA is studying whether the clocks we have in our homes will still work in space. More specifically: the scientists want to know if time moves more slowly once a quartz crystal clock leaves the earth’s atmosphere.
These scientists are testing their theory with two experiments currently installed on the International Space Station.
The scientists, though, are not NASA engineers. They are high school students at Brethren Christian School in Riverside, California.
Eight students from Brethren Christian School are participating in an extraordinary program called Quest for Space. The program allows teams of student scientists to design and build experiments for the International Space Station. Lots of schools apply, but only a few are accepted into the extremely competitive program.
“Throughout the process, we have different check-ins with NASA and SpaceX. Near the beginning, we have an idea of the approval process,” he said. At any point, Peterson said, NASA could reject the project if it doesn’t meet the agency’s exacting standards.
The superintendent of Brethren Christian School, Dr. John Moran, said that it is rare for a school’s project to receive full approval in their initial attempt.
From the concept phase of the experiment to the launch of the experiments on the Cygnus NG-11 unmanned cargo vessel in mid-April, the project took about six months. Moran and Peterson credit the tenacity of individual students, and the help of dedicated volunteer mentors. Mentorship is one of the school’s core values.
Brethren Christian School’s approach, and their mentorship program, extends beyond the space experiments. They have a debate team and a strong arts program, and they encourage students to give back to their community and to the world.
Moran said that his school exemplifies an approach to Christian education that isn’t covered by the media.
“Christian schools have been characterized as anti-science or isolationist,” he said. “I find Christian education to be the opposite. We should be really strong in science and certainly should go out and interact with the world and serve the world. Jesus gave us the example of service, and we should follow that by giving students as many practical ways to serve as possible.”
“Besides the opportunity to send something into space, I like the fact that I can do a vast array of things all at one time here,” he said. “Besides our experiments, I’m a teaching assistant for a computer science class, and I’m in band and jazz band. I can do a whole lot here, and focus on a lot of different things.”
And many of those things, it is clear to me, are quite extraordinary. Because Brethren Christian School is an extraordinary place.
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