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\nElk Point Elementary School student Jaxson Bateman in front of the elementary school’s Crew 13 exhibit during its STEAM Day on Oct. 20. File provided <\/p>\n
Students in Elk Point are preparing their questions for an 11-minute conversation with Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk aboard the International Space Station.<\/p>\n
LAKELAND \u2013 How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space? What time zone does an astronaut use when they decide to go to sleep?<\/p>\n
Those are just some of the questions students in Elk Point have been developing as they prepare to speak with Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk aboard the International Space Station (ISS) sometime in mid-December.<\/p>\n
Elk Point Elementary School and F.G. Miller Junior\/Senior High School have been organizing the event, which is going to be a live conversation with Kutryk, which is expected to last about 11 minutes, with students gathering in the F.G. Miller gym for the occasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s really exciting for our whole community, not just to talk to any astronaut, but one that is really connected to our area here,\u201d said Elk Point Elementary principal Garth Finlay. In his youth, Kutryk spent some time in Elk Point, and even attended Elk Point Elementary.<\/p>\n
Finlay said contact is tentatively planned between Dec. 14 to 18, although the exact date and time will be confirmed closer to the event.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the students\u2019 questions are already giving teachers opportunities to explore the vastness of space in the classroom. \u201cThe thing that’s most exciting is how excited the kids are,\u201d and how curious they are, Finlay said.<\/p>\n
Science beyond the classroom<\/p>\n
\nElk Point Elementary School student Jaxson Bateman in front of the elementary school’s Crew 13 exhibit during its STEAM Day on Oct. 20. File provided
<\/p>\n
At F.G. Miller, students are developing their questions for Kutryk in science classes, said F.G. Miller Principal Colin Bjorkman. Their submissions will be compiled with those from the elementary school.<\/p>\n
When Bjorkman had been looking through some of the submissions, one student\u2019s question caught his attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you know when you should go to sleep?\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s interesting . . . and there\u2019s all sorts of interesting questions that kids have come up with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond developing questions, students have also sparked stronger interest in science as a whole, he added. Older students are studying the physics involved in keeping someone in orbit, for example.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey talk about circular motion, they calculate orbits, and those kind of things,\u201d Bjorkman said. \u201cThey talk about energy and<\/p>\n
momentum . . . about gravity.\u201d And to be able to speak with someone orbiting Earth gives them a practical connection to calculations they would otherwise be working through in a textbook.<\/p>\n
Finlay agreed. At the elementary school, some of the things students have been doing include comparing the growth of tomato seeds that have been in space to seeds that have remained on Earth.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do seeds in space grow differently than seeds that have never been off of our planet? . . . It\u2019s opening up other opportunities,\u201d for scientific conversation and exploration, \u201cjust because of how excited we are about it,\u201d Finlay said.<\/p>\n
Someone who went to their school<\/p>\n
The opportunity to connect to Kutryk is also particularly special given the astronaut’s connection to the area. \u201cJust because you’re from Elk Point, it doesn’t mean you’re limited in any way at all,\u201d said Finlay.<\/p>\n
Kutryk\u2019s story inspires students to consider careers they might not otherwise picture themselves pursuing, including working as astronauts, engineers or technicians.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I don’t think most students would think that they could have a career as an astronaut or anything related to that, whether it’s the technical part like being technicians, [or] engineers,\u201d said Bjorkman. \u201cThat’s just not something that kids in small rural Alberta town think about.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yet, here we’ve got a guy that they’re going to be able to talk to who went to school at Elk Point Elementary for a few years, [which] just goes to show that a little kid from a small town in Alberta can do amazing things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Radio<\/p>\n
Local amateur radio operator Craig Hellquist shares a similar hope, as he helps arrange the contact to the schools through the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS), which connects students with astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS).<\/p>\n
Hellquist, who also grew up in Elk Point, said Kutryk\u2019s connection to the elementary school was one reason he and another local operator, Murray Boratynec, wanted to help arrange the contact. They hope that Kutryk will help inspire the kids.<\/p>\n
They also want to encourage students\u2019 further curiosity about science and show students that scientific pursuit is always possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s all about the kids. It\u2019s a once in a lifetime thing for kids to be able to communicate directly to an astronaut,\u201d while they are aboard the ISS, said Hellquist.<\/p>\n
How does contact work?<\/p>\n
Asked how ISS to Earth contact will be conducted, Hellquist said communication will use a telebridge system.<\/p>\n
During contact, there will be an amateur radio ground station that will have a direct link with the ISS. And depending on the ISS\u2019 position above Earth, the ground radio ground station could be located anywhere on the planet, relaying its communication to Elk Point via the internet.<\/p>\n
Hellquist and Boratynec will then provide background support during contact. Because the ISS is moving at such a high speed, students have a limited time available to speak with Kutryk. Hellquist estimates that students will have roughly 11 minutes of communication.<\/p>\n
The schools hope to livestream the conversation for parents, community members and other schools. Those arrangements are still being developed, with details to be shared closer to the date.<\/p>\n
A memory to look back on<\/p>\n
Bjorkman hopes the conversation becomes one of the experiences students remember when they look back on their school years. Everyone always remembers something fond of when they were in school, like a trip they went on to.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully this will be something that these kids can look back on,\u201d he said. Perhaps in the future, \u201cThey’re going to be able to tell their kids, \u2018Hey, when I was in school, we got to talk to an astronaut on the International Space Station. Isn’t that cool\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Students in Elk Point are preparing their questions for an 11-minute conversation with Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk aboard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-952570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}