On July 21 , a NASA balloon entered Earth’s stratosphere carrying a science experiment created by Unity Christian Academy students. The TechRise Student Challenge is conducted by NASA every year, and it invites students from across the country to submit proposals for experiments to conduct at high altitudes.
UCA science teacher Tom Findysz heard about the challenge, and asked some of his science students in September of 2022 to collaborate and submit proposals to NASA. In January of 2023, the students received the news that their experiment was one of 60 winning proposals out of about 500 submissions.
Working with a $1,500 budget supplied by the TechRise program, UCA students Saniya Alderson, Keilah Jackson, Samuel Williams, Laylah Elmore, Malena Rover, Amad Anthony, and Amir Anthony — with the help of Mr. Findysz — began constructing an experiment to send into the stratosphere.
The team – Amir Anthony, Mr. Findysz, Saniya Alderson, Malena Rover, Keilah Jackson, Laylah Elmore, Amad Anthony, and Samuel Williams. Not pictured: Raphael Landing-Stewart.
The idea for the experiment originally came from Saniya, who was a junior at the time. Her idea: What effect does radiation have on flight attendants and pilots, who are not considered radioactive workers?
“I’d just come back from a trip, and I thought, well, they’re up there all the time, so how would radiation affect them? It seems like it would have some type of effect,” Saniya said.
The students’ experiment was designed to test radiation levels at commercial flight altitudes in different conditions. Creating their project in a NASA-provided box measuring 4”x4”x8”, students set up three geiger counters (devices that measure radiation): one without any covering, one with two layers of fabric covering (similar to what a flight attendant might wear), and one with two layers of fabric and a layer of aluminum foil.
“One of the more difficult things we faced was soldering. It was fun but it was so tedious,” said Keilah Jackson, who explained that many wires were involved in the experiment.
UCA scientists rigged the NASA-supplied box with three geiger counters to test radiation levels.
After the flight in July, UCA received its data back from NASA near the beginning of this school year, and students graphed out the results on Mr. Findysz’s chalkboard.
“We should expect that as it goes up, the radiation levels go up. And that’s exactly what we saw,” said Mr. Findysz. “And the foil one did provide the most protection, followed by the cloth. So it worked out exactly as we were guessing it would.”
Though two of the student scientists graduated last spring, Mr. Findysz hopes the remaining students can find a way to publish their results more formally and share them with the larger science community.
For Keilah and Saniya, a takeaway from the project is the importance of teamwork. “When you’re offered help, use it,” Keilah said. “With such a small project, we didn’t think we’d need that many people, but it turned out to be more complicated than we thought it would be.”
“Everyone had something different to offer,” Saniya added. “Everyone working together really really helped.”
Mr Findysz said, “When you’re in high school, you can actually be doing real research. People think that you have to be in college or pursuing a doctoral degree to do real research. But nobody’s really done this that we’ve seen.”