Tag Archives: Johnston

Student Spaceflight Experiments Program

 Two more Houston Independent School District student experiments will soon be headed to space.  The first experiments launched in May aboard the inaugural Space X Dragon commercial space flight and will return in July.   Two other experiments are now being prepared for the mission to the International Space Station in September.

Four HISD schools, E-STEM Middle School Academy West, Garden Oaks Elementary, Johnston Middle, and Pershing Middle Schools, participated in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) Mission 2 to the ISS. 

As part of the program, students worked with teachers and members of the community to complete research on a rigorous scientific proposal along with a design challenge for experimentation in microgravity aboard the ISS.   Students also helped design a mission patch that represents HISD and their work on this project.

 The team from Pershing Middle which took top honors and Johnston Middle school student Emily Soice will represent HISD on the SpaceX Falcon 9 flight in September.  Two HISD mission patches designed by E-STEM Middle School Academy West student Abilio Sanchez and Johnston Middle School student Sebastian Beil from Johnston Middle school will also be aboard the flight.   

 The program was made possible by donations from Advanced Metal Fusion, KBR, Lockheed-Martin, Minute Maid, and Texas Space Grant.

The Student Space Flight Experiments Program (http://ssep.ncesse.org) is undertaken by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE; http://ncesse.org) in partnership with Nanoracks, LLC. This on-orbit educational research opportunity is enabled through NanoRacks, LLC, which is working in partnership with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory.

Johnston MS students win video contest celebrating “Five Ways Ed Pays” – see top entries

Johnston Middle School student Charli McBean is already actively looking at what colleges she wants to attend once she graduates. So when the College Board announced an HISD video contest celebrating the benefits of higher education, the teenager was quick to round up some of her fellow classmates and enter.

Click image to play Johnston's winning video.

“We all worked together as a group and we sat there and brainstormed and brainstormed until we finally came up with an idea,” McBean said. The end result is a music video that celebrates the “Five Ways Ed Pays” – better health, greater wealth, closer family, more security, and stronger community.

McBean and her Johnston teammates Zoe Caballero, Alicia Bozeman, and Anthony Okoro were recently honored for their creative efforts at the February HISD Board of Education meeting. Their winning video was shown to a packed crowd and all the students received new iPads from the College Board.

Also receiving iPads and iPods for their winning videos were two other student teams from Johnston and a team from Furr High School.

First place video produced by Johnston Middle School students Zoe Caballero, Alicia Bozeman, Charli McBean, and Anthony Okoro.

Second place video produced by Johnston Middle School students Josenique Gerard, Caroline Cweren, and Danielle Thompson.

Third place video produced by Furr High School students Alma Garcia, Jeffery Burgess, and Carlos Gerardo.

Fourth place video produced by Johnston Middle School students by Janet Asante, Tena Lewis, Payton Campbell, and Erin Parkin.