Students submit models to NASA

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    By Janelle Poore

    Utah high school students were able to explore the red planet through training models and a special program at UVSC this semester.

    Multimedia students enrolled in UVSC”s concurrent enrollment program, which allows high school student to receive college credit, were selected to participate in the semester-long space study program.

    “They were competitively chosen through an application process,” said Sheri Klug, director of Mars Education at Arizona State University, which sponsored the program. “They were chosen to be part of our first ever Mars Exploration student data team. This is the team that we are actually prototyping for future missions.”

    Multimedia students enrolled at the Mountainland Applied Technology College, (MATC) located on UVSC”s west campus came from 10 local high schools – American Fork, Independence, Lehi, Lone Peak, Mountain View, Pleasant Grove, Provo, Spanish Fork, Springville, and Timpview.

    Utah high school students were one of 51 high schools teams from across the country chosen to participate.

    David Black, a multimedia instructor at UVSC, applied to be part of the program last year and taught the 21 students throughout the semester.

    “We were selected for this mostly because we have the ability to do training modeling of landforms and terrains,” Black said.

    Black said his students turned their training models into 3-D models for NASA.

    Black”s students were assigned to OrbitWatch, one of three groups to which the high school students were assigned.

    “We tracked the orbit of the Mars 2001 Odyssey spacecraft by running the orbits ahead and seeing when they would pass within five degrees of either of the two landing sites, so that the scientists could be alerted and prepare to take images and measurements from orbit,” Black said.

    Klug said about 15 teams were assigned to each watch group and communicated with each other via electronic billboard.

    Black took four students to present their findings at a colloquium at ASU in April, where they met the other teams face to face for the first time.

    “Some of the things that they presented we have actually shown now at NASA meetings,” Klug said. “It”s exemplary student work.”

    Since presenting in Arizona, the students have constructed what they call “Unveiling the Red Planet,” which shows the history of Mars exploration by compiling their data and images created through the space program, Black said.

    “[It] allows users to see interactive diagrams and animations of the probes we have sent to Mars, along with the details of the Mars Exploration Student Data Team program,” Black said.

    The multimedia class officially ended this past week, but Black said the project would continue through part of the summer.

    Klug said she anticipates that the program will continue next year because ASU and NASA were so impressed with the students” work.

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