Mescalero science project will launch into space

Mescalero science project will launch into space
Julie Carter jcarter@ruidosonews.com
Posted: 10/19/2010 08:52:41 PM MDT

In April 2011, a science project designed by a team of Mescalero middle school students will fly into space on a sounding rocket from Spaceport America through a program created by NASA's Summer of Innovation, Launch and Learn.

The team of Albert Valdez, Maisie Wabaunsee and Destinee Shanta will work directly with NASA engineers and scientists to build their experiments to ready them for space. Instructors for the project are Ashley Ivins and Rosalinda Baeza. The Mescalero experiment was selected as one of 20 from New Mexico schools.

NASA's Summer of Innovation, Launch and Learn, provided a one-week professional development workshop for 138 teachers.

These instructors then went back to their home sites and recruited an average of 24 students to participate in an intensive three-to-four week STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) focused summer camp.

The camp involved five states (New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Arizona and Maine) and 35 school districts of which Mescalero Schools was one.

The Mescalero project is titled "Apache Cultural Items & More in a Microgravity Environ-ment."

The experiment will send seven organic substances (soda, mescal plant, geode crystals turquoise, pollen, sugar and salt) into space to see if any changes in the structure appear from being exposed to microgravity environment.

"Our hypothesis depends on the substances being tested," says the Mission Overview from the experiment.

"We think that the geode crystals, sugar crystals and salt crystals will expand in space. The turquoise and pollen will stay the same. We think that the soda will lose carbonation in space. We think that the mescal plant will go into shock, show stunted growth and droopy leaves."
The space program had its beginnings in New Mexico, the home of Dr. Robert Goddard. The patented design for the liquid fuel rocket was created in Roswell, N.M., by Goddard and the first rocket to reach space flew from White Sands Proving Grounds in 1948.

Launch and Learn teamed up with New Mexico SEMAA (Science, Engineering, Math and Aerospace Academy) to bring the Summer of Innovation into the lives of students.

Through the Launch and Learn Pro-gram, N.M. Space Grant and N.M. SEMAA share the opportunity to launch student experiments into space from Spaceport America in April 2011.

"This selection of this team's project is really is such an honor," said Ivins "And the experiment came totally from the minds of these students. I really wanted them to own it, so I coached them only minimally when it came to the actual design process and experiment ideas."

Destinee Shanta also entered the essay portion of the contest where the selected winner will be allowed to push the button that will launch the rocket from Spaceport America in April.

Although she did not win, her essay entitled "It's Destinee" outlined again the pride of heritage shared by the Mescalero students on the project.

"There have been many ethnicities represented in space," she wrote.

"And someday there will be the first Native American to go to space and it would be cool for a Native American to get to push the button because it would represent the possible future for my people who were the first to be here on this land."

For a list of the schools selected to submit their experiments, go to www.-launchnm.com.

MESA students attend research and leadership conference
Posted: 10/05/2010 07:51:53 PM MDT


Every year the New Mexico Alliance for Minority Participation (New Mexico AMP) hosts a statewide student research conference on the campus of New Mexico State University (NMSU).

This conference brings together students and faculty from the state's colleges and universities as well as students and teachers from NM MESA.

Here college students have the opportunity to present their research and gain presentation experience.

They also serve as role models for high school students who also get to participate in workshops de-signed specifically for them.

The AMP program also provides scholarship opportunities just for NM MESA students who are majoring in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields and attending college in NM.

This year the conference was attended by three Mescalero Apache High School students Jinnelle Foy, Cortnie Kaydahzinne, and Robert Kie and MESA Advisor Ashley Ivins.

Immediately they knew they were in for a great conference with the kickoff a keynote speech by Dr. Tyrone Hayes, Professor of Biology at the University of California, Berkley.

Dr. Hayes has been published many times as well as featured in literature such as National Geo-graphic for his work on the effects of chemicals in our water supply. His work studies the effects on the development of frogs in order to learn if humans may similarly be affected.

His riveting speech and amazing research reveals a crucial new link between conservation and health.
Mescalero senior Jinnelle Foy, who is considering majoring in biology, found the speech to be "so interesting" and Dr. Hayes to be "awesome, a really great speaker."

Jinnelle was even able to speak with Dr. Hayes after his presentation about what he chose as a college major and what led him to become a biologist studying frogs.

Next the Mescalero students attended the oral presentations and poster sessions by college students from across New Mexico as well as visiting students from New York.

The student presentations offer the opportunity to learn about a wide variety of science disciplines, mathematics and engineering.

Between presentations, the Mescalero students met Dr. Hansen, Professor of Biology and Researcher of Molecular Vector Biology, New Mexico State University, who offered to take them on a personal tour of some of the laboratories at NMSU.

There they were able to see Dr. Hansen's work on mosquitoes that ultimately fights mosquito-borne diseases.

The students also saw fruit flies and regenerative fish that were being studied at NMSU.

In the afternoon session, the students learned about physics from Dr. Stephen Kanim, Professor of Physics, NMSU, who brought lots of interesting visual demonstrations.

Cortnie Kaydahzinne of Mescalero High School had the opportunity to ride on a hovercraft built by Dr. Kanim's students.

"It was fun but a little scary!" Cortnie said of her ride on air.

Mescalero students excited about MESA competitions

Mescalero students excited about MESA competitions
Ashley Ivins For the Ruidoso News
Posted: 09/21/2010 07:23:09 PM MDT



(MESA Advisor Eleanor Pedraza looks at the "Crimson Flyer" with Mathew Naiche. Ashley...)
At 6 on a Saturday morning, most teenagers are sleeping. On a recent Saturday, Sept. 11, at 6 a.m., 33 students from Mescalero Apache Schools brand new MESA (Math, Engineering, and Science Achievement) program were on a bus and headed to Las Cruces.

The Mescalero MESA students attended the BEST (Boosting Science Engineering and Technology) Robotics Kickoff at the New Mexico State University College of Engineering.

The 2010-11 school year will be the first time that Mescalero Apache School students have participated in robotics competitions and the enthusiasm for their opening competition isn't hard to see considering that Mescalero Schools had the largest group of students in attendance for the kickoff this year.

The students were eager to get started on the actual design, but first they had to learn about the basics of the competition which doesn't only require building a robot but also creating an engineering report, a display booth, a presentation and preparation for interviews during the competition.

This year the competition theme is called "Total Recall" and the robot, which is remote controlled and built from scratch with only the provided materials, has to package gizmos and gadgets in a factory production type scene.

To make things more challenging, the students have only five weeks to complete the robot before attending a practice day and then an additional week to make any adjustments before the final competition in Las Cruces.

During their visit to NMSU, the students also got to learn about some of the activities that NMSU engineering students participate in such as the Crimson Flyer team that built a model airplane that had to perform three different tasks for competition.
A demonstration by the Mini Baja team really got their attention when the driver showing the Baja buggies abilities made an "analysis error" going into a ramp that ended in a roll! Thankfully the driver was safe and engineering instantly became more interesting to many students.

The vision of the BEST Robotics organization is to excite our nation's students about engineering, science and technology to unlock their imagination and discover their potential.

Their vision is to inspire students to pursue careers in engineering, science, technology and math through participation in a sports-like science- and engineering-based robotics competition.

Team leaders emerged as senior Laramy Baca, and juniors Danny Rios and Godfrey Enjady took the reins during inventory time to ensure the high school team had all of the supplies on their equipment lists.

On the middle school team Jaylen Duffy, Desi Cervantes and Timothy Enjady took command. The middle school team also came up with the team name "Robo Chiefs" at the kickoff. These students and their dedicated teammates are currently looking for volunteers/mentors to assist them with design and fabrication as well as programming. The teams are also seeking organizations that would be interested in allowing them to present their project to them as part of the outreach component of the competition during the next five weeks.

Last but not least, the teams need corporate sponsors to help finance travel, lodging and meals for competition, team shirts, and a laptop computer to use for programming.

If you are interested in volunteering, sponsoring or hosting a presentation, please contact advisors Ashley Ivins, aivins-@mescaleroas.org ; Eleanor Pedraza, epedraza@mesca-leroas.org ; or Rosalinda Baeza- rbaeza@mescalero-as.org.