NASA Awards Canfield Students Flight Opportunity in TechRise Challenge

Canfield, OH – A team of students at Canfield High School is among the 60 winning teams for the second NASA TechRise Student Challenge. This is a nationwide contest designed to engage students in technology, science, and space exploration. These teams will work together to build science and technology experiments in preparation for a suborbital flight test.  Each team will receive $1,500 to build their experiments and an assigned spot to test it on one of two NASA-sponsored high-altitude balloon flights scheduled for this summer.

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“NASA’s missions of tomorrow are sparked by the accomplishments of the Artemis Generation today in classrooms across America,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Through opportunities like the TechRise Student Challenge, young people are deepening their passion in science and technology, preparing to be the future innovators and pioneers who help humanity soar to new heights and unlock more secrets of the universe.”

The team from Canfield High School designed an experiment to study variables affecting crystal growth under the conditions experienced at 70,000 feet elevation.  Students had been studying crystals in their AP Chemistry class and explored methods scientists use to promote crystal growth in laboratories.  This led to an interest in how these same crystals would grow at very cold temperatures or when exposed to ultraviolet radiation, conditions that cannot be created easily in the lab.   The opportunity to fly their experiment on one of NASA’s balloons gives the students a chance to test their hypotheses and apply the gathered information to designing better crystal growing techniques.  The students are extremely excited to have this opportunity and will be working with a team of engineers to complete their design.

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The students choose the name ChemCrew for their team under the direction of Mr. Tom Slaven.  The team includes Anthony Ambrose, Katelyn Bacha, Scott Fleming, Emily Heino, Harjote Kaur, Anna Kerns, Anthony Mazzella, Sachin Nallapaneni, Febnin Nepal, Vivian Nohra, Tony Russo, and Eddie Wires.

Mike Moldovan, CHS Principal says, “I am extremely proud of our students and Mr. Tom Slaven for his guidance. This is something I’ve never seen in my 45 years of education! I am literally ‘over the moon!’”