An International Space Station school contact has been planned with participants at Young Scientists Program at USC and Vermont Elementary School, Los Angeles, CA on Oct 28. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 18:57 UTC. The duration of the contact is approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds. The contact will be direct between NA1SS and KN6CHS. The contact should be audible over the state of California and adjacent areas. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The contact is expected to be conducted in English.

Story:

Built in 1896, Vermont Elementary School is a traditional calendar school, located in South Los Angeles. Our Community is comprised of a majority of lower social-economic, working class families. It is also representative of a diverse ethnic population. The student body is comprised of 623 students in grades Pre-Kindergarten through fifth. Vermont's ethnic population includes 90.01% Hispanic, 8.6% African American, 1.2% White, and 0.5% Asian. Of these students, 44.5% are English Language Learners (ELL). 100% of our students receive free or reduced price meals. The average class size in grades Kindergarten through second is 24:1 and 30:1 in grades four through five (student to teacher ratio). The principal, Patricia Ferguson says "I have the best students". At Vermont, we pride ourselves on fostering a strong sense of community and reinforcing the values of our students and their families through our educational philosophy. Our parents are very supportive and appreciative of the resources and opportunities that its community partners like the University of Southern California (USC) provides for our students. In recent years, students have voiced their increasing sense of inclusion and support from our outstanding teachers and staff, and many of our students have gone on to lead significant community outreach efforts of their own, including working with the USC Young Scientists Program (YSP).

The USC Young Scientists Program (YSP) supports Vermont Avenue Elementary School as a partner by providing a supplemental STEAM education program to second through fifth grade classrooms, in conjunction with their classroom teachers. The YSP and Vermont Elementary have enjoyed a fruitful collaborative relationship over the last 10 years, and a number of current YSP undergraduate teaching staff members have attended the school themselves. In this way, the YSP looks to give back to the community from which its own leadership and inspiration has come from, and seeks to provide students with diverse role models within STEAM fields as a way to encourage greater representation of underrepresented minority (URM) students in these professions.

Participants will ask as many of the following questions as time allows:

1. How long does it take to get back to Earth?

2. What encouraged you to be a scientist?

3. How does it feel to be in space?

4. What do you do in space when there's danger?

5. Do you celebrate any holidays up in space?

6. What did you study when you were growing up?

7. What do you need to be worried or alert about when on a spaceship?

8. What are the most important jobs in the space station?

9. Do the astronauts at the ISS get older faster or slower, or is aging

the same?

10. How do you communicate with your family, and do you ever miss them?

11. How do you sleep, and in what do you sleep?

12. When you were young, did you want to be an astronaut?

13. How did you become an astronaut?

14. What do you do when you take a break in space?

15. Can you do your work in space without your work floating away?

16. Who would you thank for helping you to accomplish your dreams?

17. How do you get ready to go into space?

18. How is it that you guys get your food supply?

19. Is it dangerous to flip upside down after you are finished eating?

20. How did you feel saying goodbye to your family and boarding the

space station?

PLEASE CHECK THE FOLLOWING FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ARISS UPDATES:

Visit ARISS on Facebook. We can be found at Amateur Radio on the

International Space Station (ARISS).

To receive our Twitter updates, follow @ARISS_status

Next planned event(s):

1. Farmwell Station Middle School Space Dreamers, Ashburn, VA, direct

via K4LRG

The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS

The scheduled astronaut is Drew Morgan KI5AAA

Contact is go for: Tue 2019-10-29 15:01 UTC

Starting at about 14:15 UTC, watch for live stream at:

https://live.myvrspot.com/player?udi=bG91ZG91bg==&c=ZmFybWlzcw==

About ARISS

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) is a cooperative venture of international amateur radio societies and the space agencies that support the International Space Station (ISS). In the United States, sponsors are the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the ISS National Lab and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The primary goal of ARISS is to promote exploration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics by organizing scheduled contacts via amateur radio between crew members aboard the ISS and students in classrooms or public forms. Before and during these radio contacts, students, educators, parents, and communities learn about space, space technologies, and amateur radio. For more information, see www.ariss.org.

Thank you & 73,

David - AA4KN

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