April 14: The Augusta Preparatory Day School in Augusta, GA invited parents and students to Family Night to engage in learning activities and look at displays about school projects.  As part of the prep for the school’s upcoming ARISS radio contact in late summer, ARISS educator Rachel Jones and volunteer John Bobbitt set up and staffed an ARISS table. They exhibited a looping video of ARISS images and some items from the ARISS Radio Kit, i.e., Snap Circuits electronic learning kits and slinkies used to demonstrate radio waves. One hundred families and their children came to the event. Elementary and junior high kids stopping at the booth liked manipulating the Snap Circuits’ child-sized electronic components, such as resistors and capacitors. The youth engaged with the electrical circuit that was laid out to act as a Morse code oscillator and key. Rachel and John led kids in understanding how electrons flowing through wires can power devices. Kids quickly realized the fun of sending Morse code messages. Parents took ARISS leaflets; they and the high school youth asked many questions about the upcoming ARISS contact.
 
April 17: ARISS Director of Education Kathy Lamont introduced Ozbots to her Belmont Elementary School fourth and fifth graders in Prince William County, VA. They learned to code with the bots and Kathy Tweeted about it, resulting in many readers’ interactions. Last week, students at the school enjoyed manipulating ham radio antennas to listen to ARISS contacts in other states.
 
April 18: The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) and associated groups in Dubai, UAE gave high school students an exciting day with an ARISS radio contact supported by Sultan Al Neyadi, it being the first of several such scheduled ARISS contacts. The space project titled “A Call with Space” is an interactive initiative thanks to a collaboration of the Emirates Literature Foundation with MBRSC to bring space closer to the community.  The agency works to encourage space science and research in the region, offering educational programs that inspire future generations at all education levels about exploration and discovery. 
 
April 11: Eleven girls at Estes Park (CO) Elementary School, led by ARISS educator Ravi Davis, enjoy making on-the-air ham radio contacts and working toward passing their ham radio license exam. Ravi, who teaches STEAM science classes, said her girls get excited talking to ham operators around the world.  The girls’ quest to achieve the goal of becoming ham operators came from an initiative started by Ravi and the Estes Valley Amateur Radio Club after the school’s 2021 ARISS contact. In a recent post in the Estes Park Trail Gazette, Ravi said, “These students are highly motivated to learn about ham radio and radio science.”  The reporter wrote that by studying ham radio, students get introduced to science, engineering, and computer fields, and that radio science is all around us in every life. The story and its great photos of smiling girls is at  
https://www.eptrail.com/2023/04/11/students-study-for-ham-radio-licenses/.
 
April 10: ARISS Technical Mentor Charlie Sufana attended the Platinum Coast Amateur Radio Society (PCARS) meeting in Melbourne, FL, presenting a program about ARISS. He highlighted the recent ARISS contact at Stone Magnet Middle School in Melbourne, where he led the school as its ARISS Technical Mentor. His talk explained the types of ARISS contacts and how he’d transported and assembled his portable ham radio station to the school with help from area hams, allowing students to speak with Steve Bowen. Following his talk, he answered questions; some listeners asked about helping a school to write a proposal to possibly be selected for a future ARISS contact. Fifty club members attended the talk and 46 others watched a YouTube of the presentation.

ARISS Upcoming Events                                              
May 1: Council Rock High School South, Holland, PA – ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team
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April 7: An ARISS radio contact was hosted at Collège Saint-Anatoile in Salins-Les-Bains, a rural area in the Franche Comté region of France.  During the contact, Steve Bowen answered 20 student questions. 100 students, professors, parents, and city and regional officials attended the event or watched the livestream from other rooms, as did 60 students at a neighboring school.  Within two days’ time, 2,000 people had viewed the recording. The event was well covered by media—newspapers Le Progres and L'Est Républicain, TV station France3 (their short video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at8fGjEwXSY), and radio stations France Bleu and RCF.  The school had incorporated many STEM projects into the curriculum. Members of the area and regional amateur radio clubs sponsored workshops for students to introduce them to amateur radio communications, radio direction-finding, amateur radio satellites, wave propagation, and tracking the ISS.
 
April: Council Rock High School South in Holland, PA is scheduled for their ARISS contact early in May. Teachers prepared the students for the contact through special space-related curriculum and projects. The two photos below show part of the work students did to build and set up ham radio antennas with some of their teachers and members of the area’s Warminster Amateur Radio Club. Students also enjoyed getting on the air to make ham radio contacts.  ARISS learned last week that US Senator Bob Casey plans to attend the school’s ARISS contact.
 
April 8-15: ARISS-Russia carried out six ARISS radio contacts under the About Gagarin In Space education program. The schools scheduled by MCC-Moscow included Vologda College of Communications and Information Technologies in Vologda with crew member Dimitri Petelin; Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University in Kaliningrad with crew member Sergey Prokopyev; Ural State University of Railway Engineering in Yekaterinburg with Sergey Prokopyev; Admiral D.N. Senyavin Marine Technical Academy in St. Petersburg with crew member Andrey Fedyaev; MBOU School #5 for Students with Disabilities in Shchelkovo with Sergey Prokopyev, and MBOU Secondary School #1 in Vyborg with Andrew Fedyaev.  Two of these contacts, those at Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg, took place on Cosmonautics Day.
 
March 31: ARISS educator Drew Deskur, director of the Kopernik Observatory and Science Center in Vestal, NY offers space education presentations and classes to area youth. He helped students listen on ham radio to an ARISS radio contact at Stone Magnet Middle School in Melbourne, FL.  His students heard Steve Bowen’s answers to students’ questions as the ISS passed over Vestal, then Vestal students discussed the questions and answers.  Meantime, ARISS educator Kathy Lamont did the same thing with her students at Belmont Elementary School in Prince William County, VA. She had her students read the Stone Magnet Middle School students’ questions, and then her kids listened to Bowen’s replies as the ISS passed overhead. She recorded her students in order to post a video on Twitter; the video got 202 Views!
 
ARISS Upcoming Events  
Apr 18: Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre, Dubai, UAE – ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team   

March 31: The Stone Magnet Middle School in Melbourne, FL hosted an ARISS radio contact between students and Steve Bowen; he answered 20 questions. The audience at school, students watching a livestream in classrooms, and the 71 people viewing a second livestream totaled 391. A week later, the second livestream listed 488 Views. Some visitors in the room included a school board member, a district science administrator, an educator from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, a STEM coordinator from a Daytona Beach school, and a ham operator from Vero Beach who works with a school—the latter three want their schools to write ARISS Education Proposals to possibly earn an ARISS contact. Space Coast Daily ran an item at https://spacecoastdaily.com/2023/03/stone-magnet-middle-school-students-to-speak-with-astronaut-warren-hoburg-on-the-space-station-march-31/.  A WFTV reporter from Orlando aired a story about the event.  649 students had enjoyed a STEAM-based curriculum and special sessions of hands-on math and science courses. Lessons supported by the area Platinum Coast Amateur Radio Society included radio science.
 
March 30-31: The ARISS-Russia team supported two ARISS contacts in two days’ time. Students at Amur State University in Blagoveshchensk engaging in the About Gagarin in Space program enjoyed a successful ARISS contact with Andrey Fedyaev. 30 people were present for the event.
The other ARISS contact involved the About Gagarin in Space program also; youth from Aznakayevo in the Republic of Tatarstan, including children with disabilities, talked with Sergey Prokopyev.  
 
April 5: ARISS leader Dave Taylor gave a presentation via Zoom to the Montgomery Amateur Radio Club (MARC) whose members are from the Montgomery County, MD area.  His talk featured an ARISS overview and 22 MARC members tuned in.
 
ARISS Social Media 
 
ARISS’ social media leader, Jim Reed reported these major highlights for March 2023:

• ARISS Twitter Followers surpassed 18,000!
• An experiment on Facebook and Twitter with a short video on an ARISS contact resulted in 441 Reached (42 minutes viewed) on Facebook and 678 video views on Twitter

 
March Social Media Top Posts and March Total Metrics and images 

• Top March Tweet–best handheld ham radio for space: Impressions 10,578, Interactions / Engagements 594
  
• Top March Facebook Post –ARISS’ radio frequencies: Reaches / Impressions 9,691,  Engagements 339
• Top March Instagram Post – NASA video of ARISS contact for St. Lucia & the Caribbean: Reach 203,  Interactions / Engagements 24
  
• Top March Mastodon Post – ARISS’ radio frequencies: Interactions 28
  

 
ARISS Total March Social Media Metrics:

• ARISS Twitter – Total Impressions / Views 167,245,  Interactions / Engagements 4,370  
• ARISS Facebook – Total Impressions 75,798,  Interactions / Engagements 2,174
• ARISS Instagram – Total Reach 3,397,  Interactions / Engagements 325
• Mastodon – Interactions / Engagements 138
• LinkedIn – 36 new followers,  69 Reactions
• ARISS YouTube – Total Subscribers 1.84k
  

 
ARISS Upcoming Events     
                                                                  
Apr 12: Students in Yekaterinburg, Russia – ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia Team

March 23: Lana’i High and Elementary School in Lana’i City, on one of the smaller Hawaiian Islands, hosted an ARISS contact with Warren Hoburg who answered 20 student questions and one from their lead teacher.  1,285 people came to the school or saw the livestream, and as of now, 479 watched recordings.  The Hawai’i News Network posted a news story with a video and the Hawai’i Public Radio’s online publication, “The Conversation Post,” covered the event. The school’s 572 students engaged in curriculum enhanced with studies in earth and space science and research on astronomy, and lessons on radio communications from the area ham radio club.  The teacher wrote: “The students are still lit up and walking proud, which is the best feeling to see them enjoying themselves and their accomplishments.  We have opened doors for the children of Lana'i that they never knew were possible.” A volunteer ham operator (students had enjoyed her astronomy and radio lessons) said: “You could tell how excited the kids were when the astronaut started talking--you could see the moment they realized he was in space and they were going to talk to him!”
 
March 27: Excitement showed clearly on youthful faces at Valle de Camargo High School in Revilla de Camargo, Spain when students heard Steve Bowen’s voice from the ISS ham radio station. He answered 18 student questions during their ARISS radio contact. 150 people attended the event while an additional 855 viewed the livestream, which is at  https://www.youtube.com/live/zEf62O4o8pw?feature=share&t=4680. As of today, 3,000 people watched it. The school offered another livestream on its web site for more viewers. Media coverage included RTVE TV (national level and regional level), local Cantabria TV, newspapers--El Diario Montañés and Alerta, and two news agencies: Europapress and the statal agency "EFE." The faculty wanted the ARISS contact to inspire students in their math, physics, sciences, and technology studies while also enjoying instruction in amateur radio technology. The Santander Amateur Radio Association led the radio technology lessons and had worked with students during the school’s Cultural Week the past 5 years.
 
March 23-25:  With funding help from the American Radio Relay League, ARISS supported a booth at the National Science Teachers Association National Conference in Atlanta, GA.  ARISS Educator Martha Muir and ARISS volunteer Jim Reed set up the booth and staffed it, reporting that about 300 teachers from elementary schools through colleges “flooded the booth.” They heard about ARISS and ARISS SPARKI—Space Pioneers Amateur Radio Kit Initiative. The kit’s components—Snap Circuits, Morse code key, etc., caught teachers’ eyes. So many people took ARISS flyers that Jim had to get more printed. On day 2 a teacher who stopped at the booth the day before, came back. She had already downloaded and begun filling out an ARISS Education Proposal to submit in hopes of being selected for a future ARISS contact!  ARISS educator Christiana Deeter from Canterbury School in Fort Myers, FL, gave a morning session talk titled “How Would You Like an Opportunity for Your Students to Talk with an Astronaut?” about her December 2022 ARISS contact.  Martha presented an afternoon session on aspects of ARISS. NASA SCaN gave out 250 ARISS flyers at their booth and ran out! Jim gave them more.  A lighter crowd on Saturday made for more in-depth conversations at the booth. One educator learned ideas for hosting an ARISS contact at a large gathering of youth next summer.  Another educator took 15 flyers to bring home for her colleagues.  A pair of teachers who had gotten excited at Martha’s Friday session came by to ask more questions.
 
March 24: ARISS Educator Melissa Pore and two other Air & Space Forces Association (AFA) ambassadors who have won AFA Teacher of the Year awards heavily supported the 2023 AFA STEM Showcase in Arlington, VA.  AFA President B. Orville Wright welcomed 48 first through twelfth grade educators who took part in the all-day STEM educator workshop. They came from schools in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington DC. Exhibitors from educational groups such as Civil Air Patrol and ARISS had set up display tables. Melissa presented a workshop on the ARISS program, showed a short video on her school’s 2018 ARISS radio contact, and spoke about the ISS National Lab Space Station Explorers and other great STEM programs.
 
March 26: ARISS Director of Engineering Randy Berger presented a forum titled “What’s New with Amateur Radio on the International Space Station” at the 2023 QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo. This annual exposition for ham radio enthusiasts from all over the world provided multiple simultaneous forums for viewers, resulting in a lot of competition for Randy.  But enthusiasm for ARISS showed through; in addition to a lively Q&A portion at the end of the talk, viewer statistics listed 294 viewers.  Frank Bauer and Jim Reed joined in the Q&A portion to assist Randy.    
 
ARISS Upcoming Events    
TBD