The Spirit of Innovation Challenge: An interview with finalist team Chicks in Space

This week, 20 youth finalist teams will meet at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, for the Conrad Foundation’s 2013 Innovation Summit.  Teams will present their designs of a “global innovation product” developed for the Spirit of Innovation Challenge to a panel of scientists, industry leaders, entrepreneurs and government officials.  Challenged to create commercially viable products to address issues of global sustainability, teams applied their STEM knowledge in innovative ways, developing products for one of four categories—Aerospace and Aviation; Cybertechnology and Security; Energy and Environment; and Health and Nutrition.  These young entrepreneurs will undergo a tough evaluation on technical content and market viability from an expert panel, and the winning team in each category will receive a $10,000 grant to continue their product development.

I spoke with one of the teams, Chicks in Space, a subset of the Neighborhood After School Science Association (NASSA) from Ava, NY.  MaryAnn, Lillith and Adia—ages 17, 14 and 12, respectively—are among the 5 teams competing in the Aerospace and Aviation category.  Their product, the Garden of ETON (Extraterrestrial Organic Nutrition), provides a way for astronauts weary of dehydrated foods to enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables.  Through a series of experiments on plant growth in microgravity conditions, Chicks in Space developed a hydroponic gardening system that can be used in space!  Their original submission video, below, follows the research and development process of the Garden of ETON.

Members of NASSA are enthusiasts of all things space—even the club’s name was created in homage to NASA!  Last year, they were able to take a trip to the NASA Glenn Research Center.  The club began five years ago when they couldn’t find afterschool programs that addressed the topics they desired or offered programming as often as they wanted.  Beginning with a water purification challenge, the club then delved into activities from the Deep Earth Academy, which covers ocean drilling science and from NASA Wavelength, an exhaustive database of peer-reviewed Earth and space science resources.  In 2011, the club developed a microgravity experiment for a NASA contest, which earned them the chance to have astronauts perform their winning experiment on the International Space Station (ISS)!

Chicks in Space closely follow the astronauts on the ISS.  Don Pettit is the girls’ favorite astronaut to watch, whose video series “Science off the Sphere” can fill many a lunch break.  Pettit served as inspiration for the Garden of ETON due to his in-flight experiments growing plants.  The humorous Diary of a Space Zucchini chronicles one such microgravity experiment.  The team hoped to build on the challenge of successfully growing plants without the earthly gravitational clues and to develop a sustainable fresh food source to be used on the ISS and in other microgravity environments.

Through their participation in science fairs throughout their elementary school years, along with their experiments in their afterschool club, the girls have become experts in the scientific process, demonstrating truly rigorous research and design skills. For help with some of the high-level science content needed to develop and refine the Garden of ETON, the team has Skyped with experts in the U.S. and overseas.  They’ve been amazed at the willingness of scientists and other professionals to help out!

Ultimately, the Chicks in Space aim to present their findings to the International Space Station and hope that what they’ve developed can contribute to future NASA missions.  The girls find space travel fascinating, believing it will be for the benefit of mankind if we can achieve it on a large scale.  These entrepreneurial scientists have a bright future and the Afterschool Alliance wishes MaryAnn, Lillith and Adia the best of luck at the Spirit of Innovation Challenge!