Education in the Paradise Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) is being linked closely with innovation, according to a recent statement from the district’s Governing Board President, Anne Greenberg. She described education as inherently innovative, noting that students regularly advance and develop new ways of thinking as they master concepts.
Greenberg highlighted how students across PVUSD are engaged in problem-solving and creative activities, whether working individually at their desks, collaborating with peers, or participating in maker spaces. She emphasized that “innovation flows from imagination and ingenuity and both are in abundance throughout our schools.”
This school year, PVUSD has started participating in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP), a national STEM initiative organized by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education. In partnership with Honeywell, students will design and propose a microgravity experiment intended for the International Space Station (ISS).
At the program’s kickoff event, David Shilliday, Vice President and General Manager of Advanced Air Mobility at Honeywell, stated: “Every breakthrough starts with a question.” According to Greenberg’s message, elementary school students will begin by posing questions that will be further researched by middle schoolers. High school students will then design experiments based on these ideas for possible execution aboard the ISS.
The selection process for the PVUSD flight experiment involves a two-step proposal review by the SSEP National Review Board. Once selected, NASA conducts a flight safety review before any necessary refinements are made by student teams ahead of integration into an ISS payload.
Additionally, PVUSD students can submit designs for mission patches to accompany their experiments into space. This continues a tradition dating back to Project Mercury in the 1960s.
Greenberg concluded her message by expressing enthusiasm for this opportunity and reaffirming PVUSD’s commitment to fostering innovation across all areas of student life: “Whether it’s culinary or coding, robotics or reading, academics or acting, or just about anything else that occurs in our classrooms and clubs and on our fields and stages, doing something new or making something better is all part of the PV experience.”
On behalf of the Governing Board,
Anne Greenberg
President
