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Doncaster Primary School talks to the ISS
Date :
02 /
03 /
2010
Author :
David Kay - Teacher - Doncaster Primary School
After a chance meeting a year ago between Nabil Karkar, a parent of two students at our school, and Robert Broomhead, who is involved in amateur radio, Nabil approached the school suggesting the school apply to speak to an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS). This led to two fantastic events taking place at Doncaster Primary School on Thursday the 25th of February.
During the day some students and staff come to school dressed up in a space theme costume. There were astronauts, planets, movie characters such as Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Buzz Lightyear, Men in Black and even some space princesses and a space lion!
After the excitement of the day, the evening link up with the ISS saw over 200 students, family
members and staff attending. Seventeen school students spoke to American astronaut TJ Creamer. The students involved in asking questions were William, Matilda, Matthew and Dominic from Prep, Archie from Year 1, Ethan, Lauren, Artom, Adelle and Isabelle from Year 2, Audrey, Jylon, Raena and Ben from Year 3 and Jade from Year 4.
Questions asked included, ‘What happens if you run out of air?’, ‘How do you exercise in space?’, ‘What is your favourite food aboard the space station?’ and ‘When you are in space are you ever nervous about anything?’.
The link up was made possible due to amateur radio operators around the world. Radio amateur members Robert Broomhead VK3DN, Jack Bramham VK3WWW, Ralph Parkhurst VK3LL and Max Chadwick VK3WT assisted at Doncaster Primary School. Tony Hutchison VK5ZAI, who is the NASA representative in Australia for Amateur Radio and the ISS (ARISS) has helped with setting up the link up since May last year. Shane Lund VK4KHZ in Glenden Queensland coordinated the linkup on the night.
At the end of the evening all the students who asked questions to TJ Creamer were presented a certificate from ARISS.
A special thanks to staff that assisted on the night and Mrs Duncan for assisting the students to create the art work displayed in the conference room.
As one family said to Ms Mackrell,’ Tonight was an absolutely fantastic night and the entire school community should be very proud of how we behaved in front of the world.
You can listen to the mp3 recording of the questions being asked to TJ Creamer from the link at the bottom of this page.
Doncaster Primary School goes into CYBERSPACE
One of the parents who attended the link up, David Heath who is the father of Addison, wrote an article for the IT and Telecommunications web site IT Wire. To read the article click the following Link
Doncaster Primary School on 3WBC 94.1FM
Audio of the link up will also be featured on local community radio station 3WBC 94.1FM on Wednesday the 3rd of March at around 2.45pm. The audio segment will be played on Catherine Chadwick's ‘Community Corner’ program which focuses on events, activities and personalities in the Whitehorse-Boroondara and surrounding urban areas.
Last week Catherine foreshadowed the Space Station link-up having noted an article about it in a local newspaper, only to learn that her father Max VK3WT, together with other members of the Eastern and Mountain District Radio Club, would be helping to make a video recording of the event. Radio 3WBC 94.1 FM can be easily received in the Whitehorse, Boroondara and surrounding areas.
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