Team of students taught by Alfred University alumnus develop experiment headed to International Space Station
A team of students from Wellsville Central High School in Wellsville, NY, taught by Alfred University alumnus Ross Munson ’06, MSEd ’08 has been chosen to participate in a program in which scientific experiments are conducted on the International Space Station.
A team of students from Wellsville Central High School in Wellsville, NY, taught by Alfred University alumnus Ross Munson ’06, MSEd ’08 has been chosen to participate in a program in which scientific experiments are conducted on the International Space Station.
Munson, who teaches biology at Wellsville, earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Alfred University in 2006 and a master’s in education, also from Alfred University, in 2008. His team of four students, all sophomores, developed an experiment under the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP). Initiated in 2010 as a model U.S. national Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education initiative, the SSEP gives students the ability to design and propose real microgravity experiments conducted in a weightless environment.
The Wellsville team proposed an experiment which examines the effect microgravity has on the resistance of the bacteria Staphylococcus epidermidis to the antibiotic amoxicillin. The students performed a control test in the lab at their school. A tube containing the bacteria and antibiotic will be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) in June. After four to six weeks, the sample will return to earth, and the students will analyze it to determine the effect weightlessness has on the relationship between the bacteria and antibiotic.
Wellsville’s experiment was the topic of a recent story broadcast Thursday (Feb. 10) on Buffalo’s NBC affiliate, WGRZ-TV, titled “Wellsville student science project headed to the International Space Station.”
The Wellsville experiment was first in the region among entrants in the SSEP program and is among 25 chosen to participate in this year’s mission to the ISS, the 16th since the program began in 2010. This marks the second time a team of Wellsville High School students led by Munson has taken part in the SSEP program. In 2018, a team conducted an experiment in which flatworms were sent to the ISS to examine the effects of Vitamin C on regeneration in a microgravity environment.