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Catholic students compete in aerospace contest
By Ambria Hammel, The Catholic Sun
December 20, 2007
Teachers don’t usually encourage students to stare into space, unless they go to Ss. Simon and Jude School.
Seven teams of science-minded sixth- through eighth-graders competed against more than 200 other state teams in the ninth annual Aerospace Challenge Dec. 3-4 at Arizona State University’s West campus.
Three Ss. Simon and Jude teams earned honorable mentions.
Team Hakuna Matata — made up of three girls and two boys — received recognition for best team spirit.
“They were really impressed with how much we shared our talking,” Ss. Simon and Jude student Cassandra McCabe said of the judges.
The teammates politely took turns presenting their project to experts at Honeywell, who spent all day judging the projects.
The Aerospace Challenge — presented by Honeywell as part of the annual Fiesta Bowl festivities — invites students to research the development of the current International Space Station and then plan for the next generation of astronauts.
Each team described how it would sustain life for 100 people for two years. The Hakuna Matata team planned six greenhouses around the space station to make food supply more economical.
Maureen Hill, science teacher at Ss. Simon and Jude, was impressed that one of the models featured live plants in its model.
“I never see the models until we come” to the competition, Hill said. The students work independently, mostly on their own time, to create a model and write a report.
Each team was limited to $50 to build their space stations and judges awarded points for using recycled parts. Judges awarded the Phoenix Spartans — a team of four boys — with honorable mention recognition for “best use of recycled materials.”
The boys used a lot of cardboard from cases of soda and tape to create their model.
Several teams outlined provisions for an interfaith chapel and chaplain inside their space station.
“Someone might be very religious and it wouldn’t be fair to deprive them of it for two years,” Ss. Simon and Jude student Tristan Stoutenberg said.
The students wanted to respect the astronauts’ various religious practices.
“The learning is the key to why you bring the kids,” Hill said. That makes staring into space productive.
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