Submit an Experiment for ‘Kids in Micro-g’ Challenge

November 17, 2010 — Do you have an idea for an experiment? Submit it to NASA’s Kids in Micro-g challenge and your experiment could be performed by astronauts aboard the International Space Station next spring. The challenge is open to students in grades 5-8. Proposals are due by December 8. Click here to find out how to apply. "This is a wonderful program that gives students the opportunity to have their experiments carried out in space by astronauts," said Mark Severance, ISS national laboratory education projects manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center. "The students will compare the results of experiments conducted in the classroom with those conducted in the microgravity environment of the International Space Station." The experiments, which should take 30 minutes or less to set up, run and take down, should examine the effect of weightlessness on various subjects: liquids, solids, the law of physics and humans. The experiments are expected to have observably different results in microgravity than in the classroom. The apparatus for the experiments must be constructed using materials from a special tool kit aboard the station. The kit contains items commonly found in classrooms for science experiments. A panel of microgravity scientists, classroom teachers, NASA education and station operations personnel will select the winner and five runners-up. Their experiments will be performed on the orbiting laboratory from March-May 2011. During this past summer, astronauts performed nine student experiments aboard the space station. NASA selected those experiments from 132 submissions. The winning experiment proposals will be announced on January 31, 2011. The winning teams will be presented with DVDs of their experiment being performed onboard ISS along with official NASA certificates to commemorate their accomplishment.

Astronaut Tracy Caldwell-Dyson performs the Kids in Micro-g Water Absorption Experiment from Vaughan Elementary School in Powder Springs, Georgia. Photo credit: NASA Astronaut Doug Wheelock performs the Liquids in Microgravity experiment from the Virginia Academy in Ashburn, Virginia. Photo credit: NASA

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