1. Fairmont Elementary School and Sanger High School

Fairmont Elementary School and Sanger High School have pioneered Fresno Countyâs first Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP). This large scale vertical articulation between schools provided an amazing opportunity for our students with an authentic space program experience. SSEP, a national model STEM education program, has engaged hundreds of our students 5-12th grade in real microgravity experiment design and proposal writing. Experiments are submitted nationwide as well as in Canada and Brazil for SSEP Mission 12. One of our student-proposed experiments has been selected to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) in low Earth orbit, and be operated by the astronauts. The experiment will be part of a payload for Student Spaceflight Experiments Program Mission 12 to ISS, and will launch on a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL, adjoining NASAs Kennedy Space Center, in late Spring 2018.

2. Moreno Valley Unified School District

The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) was launched in June 2010 by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in strategic partnership with NanoRacks, LLC. It is a remarkable U.S. national Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education initiative that gives typically 300+ students across a participating community the ability to design and propose real experiments to fly in low Earth orbit, first aboard the final flights of the Space Shuttle, and then on the International Space Station.
The program provides seamless integration across STEM disciplines through an authentic, high visibility research experienceâan approach that embraces the Next Generation Science Standards. SSEP immerses hundreds of students at the local level in the research experienceâstudents are truly given the ability to be real scientists and engineers. Each community participating in SSEP conducts a local Flight Experiment Design Competition, with their student teams competing to fly an experiment in low Earth orbit in a real research mini-laboratory reserved just for their community. Students
can design experiments in diverse fields, including: seed germination, crystal growth, physiology and life cycles of microorganisms (e.g. bacteria), cell biology and growth, food studies, and studies of micro-aquatic life. Content resources for teachers and students support foundational instruction on science in microgravity and experiment design. A suite of SSEP program elementsâthe Community Programâleverages the flight experiment design competition to engage the entire community, embracing a Learning Community Model for STEM education. For school districtsâeven individual schoolsâSSEP provides an opportunity to implement a systemic, high caliber STEM education program tailored to community need.

SSEP is designed to inspire and engage Americaâs next generation of scientists and engineers, and it is accomplished by providing each participating community their own very real Space Program.