SEQUIM — To say four Sequim students were over the moon about what they accomplished this summer might be an understatement.
Allee Deering, Riley Guimond, Olivia Lozano and Megan Reeves — members of the Starry Sequim Serpents team through the Sequim Middle School NASA Science Club — won a trip to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida last month.
“It was awesome,” Reeves said in an interview with her teammates.
The team worked through a mission binder after school each Wednesday last year to accomplish various tasks for the Artemis ROADS II project that included building a bottle rocket, a rover and a lunar habitat.
Mission advisor and school science teacher Sara Turner said it was the third year for the club and she’s proud of the students for being the first in the school to qualify.
Teammates were surprised they were one of 15 teams selected for the trip out of 498 teams in the nation.
To be chosen was extra special to students like Deering, now a high school freshman, because she participated in the club her sixth- and seventh-grade years, and this “was the last summer I was able to qualify before I had to move on.”
Some of their other tasks included designing a mission patch and logging their missions into a presentation while making various deadlines along the way.
The team presented at a regional event on May 4 at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, where they won best rocket design.
Guimond said science teacher Joe Landoni gave them some pointers as he does an annual lesson on rockets in his class.
“He gave us inspiration,” Guimond said.
Similar to the end of a college semester on finals week, the Starry Sequim Serpents were cramming in June to submit their mission development log by the end of the school year, with help from club member Caleb Van de Weghe and a pizza party.
Turner was alerted of their win, and she and the four students received airfare, hotel stays and tickets to visit the Kennedy Space Center with funding through the Northwest Earth and Space Sciences Pathways (NESSP) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Some career and technical education funds were used for transporting them to and from the airport, Turner said.
Students spent Aug. 12-16 in Florida, visiting the space center on a VIP tour, watching a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch, riding a shuttle simulator and more.
Students said the Shuttle Launch Experience felt real as they dangled in the air and felt weightless. They also saw a Saturn V rocket, IMAX movies and the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame.
Guimond said he definitely wants to go back.
Both he and Lozano, now eighth-graders, said they’re returning to join the club and want to earn another trip to Florida.
“I want to work harder and help our other teammates … so we can have more teams go next year,” Lozano said.
While both Deering and Reeves are freshmen, they felt the club propelled them to pursue careers in science in some capacity.
“Doing this club is when I knew I wanted to do a career in science,” Deering said.
She said it offered an opportunity to explore available careers as many “people don’t figure out what they want to do until much older.”
She’s considering a career as a psychologist.
Reeves said she’s always been interested in science and, through her dad, a pilot, she learned a lot about flying and space flight.
“It’s what got me into astronomy, and I think it’s pretty fascinating,” she said.
Turner said she’s found the club has helped all of the students build their confidence in science classes.
“It’s fun and challenging,” Lozano said of the club.
The Sequim Middle School NASA Science Club for sixth- through eighth-grade students will start on the Artemis ROADS III National NASA Student Challenge in late September on Wednesdays after school.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
