Ocean City High School Students to Discuss Space Project With Sea Isle City BOE

The Ocean City High School students whose project was on board an Orbital Sciences cargo rocket that exploded shortly after takeoff will make a presentation to the Sea Isle City Board of Education, the Ocean City Gazette reports.

That presentation is scheduled for the Jan. 6 meeting, the same date as the rescheduled launch, according to the report.

The Antares rocket, which exploded just moments after liftoff at 6:22 p.m. at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on the Virginia coast on Oct. 28, was carrying the students’ experiment in a 7-inch test tube with three compartments.

The experiment was designed to gauge the attachment rate of E. coli bacteria to lettuce leaves in microgravity.

The hope was that it could be useful in treating infection in astronauts.

The students who put the experiment together were seniors Mercy Griffith, Kaitland Wriggin, Lauren Bowersock, Kristina Redmond, Dan Liggi and Alison Miles. They worked under the direction of teachers Dave Urich, Catherine Georges and Weaver, and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Director Mikenzie Helphestine.

They were on hand when the rocket exploded, and called their reaction a mix of “fear and excitement.”

Students from the Primary and Intermediate schools had patches on board the rocket, as well. Those patches will be recreated for the tentatively scheduled relaunch, according to The Gazette.

The presentation is part of a Sea Isle City initiative to educate residents about programs in the Ocean City school district, where children in Sea Isle City attend school, according to the report.