Area High School Students ‘Dream Big’ with UToledo

June 5, 2025 | News, UToday, Alumni, Judith Herb College of Arts, Social Sciences and Education
By Nicki Gorny



Area high school students are finding outer space within their reach with the help of The University of Toledo and the nonprofit NearSpace Education.

NearSpace Education is behind the initiative Dream Big, which counts UToledo as one of six university partners in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. Under the shoot-for-the-stars objectives of Dream Big, these phase-one partners are working toward the launch of a six-satellite constellation that will advance the way we explore the world around us while engaging the next generation of students in advanced manufacturing and space technologies.

Photo of Bob Richards of Stockbridge Junior/Senior High School as he watches UToledo’s Dr. Kevin Czajkowski and Stephen Yankyera prepare a weather balloon to test still-in-development satellite instrumentation outside Defiance Elementary School in early May.

Bob Richards of Stockbridge Junior/Senior High School watches as UToledo’s Dr. Kevin Czajkowski and Stephen Yankyera prepare a weather balloon to test still-in-development satellite instrumentation outside Defiance Elementary School in early May.

“It’s been a really cool opportunity,” said Hala Komaiha, who contributed to the development of a small satellite to record environmental data as a senior at Crestwood High School in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. “We’re working on a much larger scale than any other projects I’ve ever done.”

Dr. Kevin Czajkowski, a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning, leads the team of undergraduate and graduate students who have been working with teenagers at three regional high schools twice weekly since September.

These schools are the Toledo Technology Academy and, in southeast Michigan, Crestwood High School and Stockbridge Junior/Senior High School.

As the UToledo team has introduced the younger students to the ins and outs of satellites, the instruments scientists attach to them and what we can learn from the data they relay, they’ve simultaneously been building their own ThinSat, a type of innovative, affordable small satellite produced by the Upland, Indiana-based NearSpace Launch.

NearSpace Education is the nonprofit arm of NearSpace Launch.

Each Dream Big university partner is approaching their work according to an area of expertise, with Czajkowski and his team focusing on remote sensing. They’ve equipped their satellite with a low-cost spectrometer adapted from Science and Technology Education for Land/Life Assessment (STELLA), a NASA project that introduces technologies for remote sensing through hands-on learning experiences.

The instrument records data across 18 wavelengths that can provide valuable insights into topics like urban heat islands, a particular area of interest for the Toledo Technology Academy, or the harmful algal blooms that annually plague Lake Erie.

“We’re trying to do all this with sensors that cost about $100,” Czajkowski said. “So, in addition to the value of this project in engaging high school students, we’re also learning a lot about potentially lower-cost ways to gather data using satellites.”

For UToledo’s Elizabeth Blakely-White, who collaborated on the project as a geography and planning senior, a highlight was the weather balloon launch organized to test the still-in-development instrumentation in Defiance, Ohio, in early May.

“We did it at Defiance Elementary in front of the kids, who were very excited,” said Blakely-White, who recently graduated with her bachelor’s degree and an undergraduate certificate in geographic information science and technology. “Putting the balloon together made everything we have been working towards feel real, and the moment the kids started counting down made me feel giddy and surreal.”

Blakely-White learned about the project through a remote sensing course, which explored how to use data from satellites and aerial planes to solve real-world problems, and she credits it with helping her to land her job as a geographic information system assistant for the Fulton County Government.

She plans to return to campus in the fall to pursue a master’s degree in geography.

Dream Big also has proven to be a valuable learning opportunity for the four seniors who chose to participate as an extracurricular project at Crestwood High School, said Diana Johns, a science teacher and department chair at the school.

“They found out really quickly that it’s more than just sitting down and building a sensor,” she said. “They had to stay within a budget; they had to pay attention to the dimensions. There were a whole host of preliminary things that went into this.

“I was just so pleased that Dr. C made this project available to our high school students,” Johns continued. “What an awesome experience.”