30 Apr 2002
Obadiah Knight and Walnut Hill Student Signatures Collected May 2 Will Be Flown to Space
DALLAS—As part of the Student Signatures in Space program, two posters carrying the names of students from two Dallas Independent School District schools will be collected and flown to space aboard the STS-113, a space station assembly mission scheduled to launch in October.
Signatures will be collected at both schools Thursday, May 2, Space Day.
The signatures of Obadiah Knight and Walnut Hill elementary students will make the journey many children long to make, a trip to space aboard a U.S. space shuttle. After the mission, the posters will be returned to the schools, along with a photo of the crew that carried the signatures up and a flight certification verifying that the signatures flew in space.
Knight and Walnut Hill are two out of more than 500 elementary and middle schools nationwide participating in the project. Student Signatures in Space is intended to inspire children to pursue careers in science, math and technology education.
At Obadiah Knight, the poster will be on display all day Thursday to allow the schools' 950 students an opportunity to sign it. In addition to the poster signing event, students will preview the short-film "Adventure to Mars" at 8:30 a.m., 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. The film, created by fifth grade talented and gifted students, was made possible with video-editing equipment purchased with funds from a $5,000 campus mini-grant.
"Our students have been working all year on this project," said teacher Janet Carmen. "First, they created a newspaper in which they reported news as if they were newspaper columnists living on Mars. Another challenge was to create something that would make living on Mars easier. For this, they created a four-wheel exploration vehicle that could travel on Mars and send photos back to earth."
Finally, the students were asked to create something that could make life on the planet easier. To meet this requirement, the students came up with the prototype of a toothbrush that could defy gravity and a solar-powered pressure cooker. The toothbrush looks like the equipment dentists use to rinse a patient's mouth. A trip to NASA in Houston on March 20 helped the students understand what a space mission is all about and visualize the challenge ahead. The trip was sponsored by Southwest Airlines, the school's partner in education.
The 450 students at Walnut Hill Elementary will sign the poster throughout the day Thursday. "The students have been conducting pretty intensive research on the Internet and will put together a Powerpoint presentation that will be presented to their classmates in mid-May," said science teacher Kathy Frarr-Addington.