Sunset Middle School MESA Stars in NSF Grant-Great Balls of Fire!

Under the guidance of MESA advisor, Steve Davis, Sunset Middle MESA students are participating in a project in collaboration with the Space Science Institute (SSI) of Boulder to create a national exhibition on asteroids, comet, and other near Earth objects. The National Science Foundation provided the grant for the exhibition, which will travel to science museums. The Sunset MESA team is one of three “student advisor teams” (the other two are in Albuquerque, NM and Hickory, NC) who are helping to design, test, evaluate and launch the exhibit project which is scheduled to begin its run in late 2011.

Students are also helping develop a web site to support the exhibit. Finally, each of the teams has committed to produce a public service piece related to the project for their home community. The Sunset team is creating a video for elementary students about the exhibit’s subject matter. They have already interviewed 5th grade students at Indian Peaks Elementary School to gauge their level of knowledge. Additional work has been done on some stop-action animation of the solar system. The finished video will debut in April.