{"id":93097,"date":"2025-06-05T03:45:35","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T07:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/?p=93097"},"modified":"2025-06-10T08:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T12:54:08","slug":"area-high-school-students-dream-big-with-utoledo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/06_05_2025\/area-high-school-students-dream-big-with-utoledo","title":{"rendered":"Area High School Students \u2018Dream Big\u2019 with UToledo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Area high school students are finding outer space within their reach with the help of The University of Toledo and the nonprofit NearSpace Education.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Photo

Bob Richards of Stockbridge Junior\/Senior High School watches as UToledo\u2019s Dr. Kevin Czajkowski and Stephen Yankyera prepare a weather balloon to test still-in-development satellite instrumentation outside Defiance Elementary School in early May.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a really cool opportunity,\u201d 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. \u201cWe\u2019re working on a much larger scale than any other projects I\u2019ve ever done.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

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\u2019ve simultaneously been building their own ThinSat, a type of innovative, affordable small satellite produced by the Upland, Indiana-based NearSpace Launch.<\/p>\n

NearSpace Education is the nonprofit arm of NearSpace Launch.<\/p>\n

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\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to do all this with sensors that cost about $100,\u201d Czajkowski said. \u201cSo, in addition to the value of this project in engaging high school students, we\u2019re also learning a lot about potentially lower-cost ways to gather data using satellites.\u201d<\/p>\n

For UToledo\u2019s Elizabeth Blakely-White, who collaborated on the project as a geography and planning<\/a> senior, a highlight was the weather balloon launch organized to test the still-in-development instrumentation in Defiance, Ohio, in early May.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did it at Defiance Elementary in front of the kids, who were very excited,\u201d said Blakely-White, who recently graduated with her bachelor\u2019s degree and an undergraduate certificate in geographic information science and technology. \u201cPutting 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

She plans to return to campus in the fall to pursue a master\u2019s degree in geography.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey found out really quickly that it’s more than just sitting down and building a sensor,\u201d she said. \u201cThey 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just so pleased that Dr. C made this project available to our high school students,\u201d Johns continued. \u201cWhat an awesome experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"Photo<\/a>

NearSpace Education is working with six university partners to engage high school students in hands-on satellite development through the initiative Dream Big.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":908,"featured_media":93098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,498,1,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93097"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93097"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93100,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93097\/revisions\/93100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}