Local kids go on a mission to Marsville

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  • Team Eglin Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  Outside, April 24 was just another clear Florida day, but inside the Duke Field Fuel Cell Hangar, it was a place out of this world. Welcome to Marsville. 

Sponsored by Eglin's 96th Air Base Wing, Marsville is a collaborative effort between Eglin and the surrounding elementary schools' fifth-grade students, faculty and parents. The goal is to encourage students to pursue careers in science and engineering. The 14th annual event featured 125 students from Wright, Longwood, and Valparaiso elementary schools. 

"This is an activity that lets the students explore the possibilities of inhabiting Mars," said Eglin's lead project coordinator Glenda Stewart. 

It didn't take long for the students and their helpers to transform the empty hangar into a bustling Martian neighborhood of sorts. 

"The students take seven basic life functions and bring them together in different habitats where they share their detailed information on how they decided to support these basic life systems," said Mrs. Stewart. "This is a very interesting and exciting activity for the students, the teachers, the parents, and all of the volunteers that are involved." 

The students were challenged to construct and present their scale models of the life systems: air, water, waste management, food procurement, transportation, communications and recreation. 

"It was fun ... it only took two days to build it," Longwood Elementary student Mikey Wells said of his team's air purification system project. "The pollutants are blown into a freezing chamber and frozen into dry ice. Then the dry ice is transferred to waste," he explained, as Sean Ownby, his project teammate, pointed to each component. 

The event was supported by dozens of volunteers from the 96th ABW's communications, civil engineer, security forces and medical units, as well as the Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate and the 919th Maintenance Group. Other volunteers included more than 20 cadets and instructors from the Niceville High School Junior ROTC unit. 

"They never had cool activities like this to do when I was in school," said Kenya Martin, Air Force Research Lab engineer. "These projects are amazing." 

Special guest presenter Linda Andruske, lead NASA fuel cell/cryogenics engineer for Space Shuttle Atlantis at Kennedy Space Center, briefed the students on the primary challenges of interplanetary space travel and colonization as well as man's pursuit of ways to overcome them. 

"Today, I've seen some innovative ideas from such young minds, it's really exciting when you think about where space travel could be in the next 40 years," said Ms. Andruske.
She said her own potential to becoming an engineer was realized and encouraged by her math and science teachers. This was echoed by many of the Marsville teachers who described hands-on activities like this one help create excitement in learning tougher subjects. 

Weeks before the event, several Eglin volunteers visited the schools to brief students about their respective specialties as they applied to the seven life system types.
Master Sgt. Brian Tong, 96th CS wire chief, briefed the students on the technology they would need to communicate between Earth and Mars, such as deep space network communications system based at locations from California to Spain and Australia. 

"The joy of the experience is working with the kids - they're awesome," he said. "It really touches your heart when you see these kids again like this and they recognize you."
Shelley Bloomfield (AFRL) and Dan Neely (919 SOW) contributed to the article