A Deerfield sophomore and an Evanston junior are among four suburban Illinois students whose experiment on bumblebees will be launched to the International Space Station this summer.
The students designed their experiment, meant to find out how bumblebees fare in space, during a regional Go for Launch STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) camp in June 2017 at Deerfield High School. They learned they were national winners Dec. 16, according to program director Michelle Lucas.
Their experiment was selected from among four finalists at regional camps held across the country, according to Lucas. She said 35 teams with more than 130 participants competed.
Lucas, whose non-profit corporation Higher Orbits operates Go for Launch, said she uses space to engage students in STEM education.
The four Team NESS members were strangers when they met at the camp, according to Erin Keating, a DHS sophomore and one of the squad members.
“On the first day we were told to form our teams,” Keating said. “We were all sitting next to each other, looked at each other and decided to be a team.”
“It was really cool,” said Sarah Bloom, an Evanston Township High School junior and team member. “We all began to know each others’ strengths and how to use that to work together. Getting to know each other this way made us close quickly.”
Other team members are Skye McCord of Crystal Lake, a Lundahl Middle School eighth grader, and Nova Sweeney, a junior at Richmond-Burton Community High School in Richmond, Ill.
The students are passionate about space exploration, and while mulling ideas for their experiment, talked about what humans would need to live on or colonize other planets.
They knew growing food would be essential.
“Bees are necessary for farming,” Keating said. “We would be able to watch them (in space) and see how they behave at microgravity and how they react.”
Bumblebees are ideal because they hibernate when the temperature drops below 30 or 32 degrees, according to McCord. She said their prolonged sleep can be controlled so they travel into space safely and then begin to make honey and reproduce after they wake up.
Bees have been launched into space before, but Lucas said this is a first for bumblebees.
Bloom said the team will work with professional engineers to determine the best way to get the bumblebees into space and observe their behavior while they orbit Earth for approximately a month.
Keating said they will have the ability to watch the experiment from their computers at home.
“We’re going to be looking at their honey production as they make a home in space,” Keating said. “I want to see if the honey is runny or has more of a mass, or if it is a different color.”
Team NESS members don’t know if they’ll get to taste the honey; having it return from space isn’t economically efficient.
NESS is an acronym for the first names of each of the team members. As they tried to determine the best order of the letters, Bloom said she came up with additional symbolism that sealed the choice.
“‘Ness’ in Hebrew is ‘miracle,'” Bloom said.
Steve Sadin is a freelancer for Pioneer Press.
