Denise Renfro | Bigger Picture

Beasley Digital

4/22/2025

Transcript

00:00Bigger Picture is on this Beasley Media platform. I'm Baze Jr. and joining me today on the Zoom

00:06is Ms. Denise Rentrow. She is a teacher over at Douglas Bird High School. Good morning. How are

00:12you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you. Now, I understand that you and your students got some

00:18big news. What's going on over at Douglas Bird? We were involved in a project called Starward

00:25STEM. It was a grant that the county got with a research triangle in a group that does grants

00:33for education, basically. And we spent an entire semester working on project-based learning.

00:41And our project was to figure out what type of electrical generation you'd have on Mars.

00:51And we were already studying wind and wind energy and solar power, geothermal, those sorts

00:57of things. So the students were tasked with taking the information they were learning about

01:01that and trying to figure out how you apply that to Mars and how you would get it there

01:06and everything else, right? But once you finished that, you did that project, then they had a

01:12design challenge. And that design challenge was to create an experiment to put on the International

01:17Space Station. And so we probably worked for several months on that experiment. And what they

01:25came up with was, let's see, the title was The Impact of Perchlorates on Aluminum Alloy T73.

01:35And what basically that meant was that we had noticed that the rover wheels had corrosion on them. We read

01:44that in an article and they showed pictures of it. And there's not much air or water on Mars. So what

01:52caused it? And again, we had through research determined or had learned that it was caused by

01:58material in the soil called perchlorates. And so we found out you can purchase Martian soil. It's

02:05it's imitation soil, but they make it, you know, just like the Martian soil so they can figure out what

02:10they can plant and grow ultimately, right? So the metal used on the rover up there that had the

02:17corrosion was Aluminum Alloy T73, a special aerospace metal. And so that was our project. So we took that

02:26fake Martian soil, added a little bit of perchlorate in there. We used the Aluminum Alloy metal in little

02:33teeny pieces. And we had this, this really small tube. It's, it's probably not a quarter of an inch

02:39in diameter. And the length of it is maybe four inches and it has little pinch things on it. And

02:45we put on one side, the metal and on the other side, the perchlorate. And when it goes up onto the

02:51International Space Station, the pinch tube will be undone and it'll be shaken together. And so the

02:56metal will come in contact with the perchlorate, just like it would have on the Mars rover, right?

03:04And we'll do the same thing here on earth and we'll have a control. And then when it gets back,

03:09we're doing this, we got some help. They suggested that we do this too at FSU. And Dr. Jonathan

03:16Breitzer in the chemistry department was helping us out. And the students are going to be able to look

03:21at the metal when it gets back underneath the electron microscope at the state. So that's really cool.

03:27And then they'll be able to look at the, the liquid mixture of the perchlorates. They'll centrifuge

03:32that and they'll get the liquid and they'll be able to look at that using atomic spectroscopy,

03:38which will identify what metals are in that liquid. And if there are metals from the alloy in the liquid,

03:45you know that it corroded. And we'll be able to look at that for both what went up on the International Space Station in zero gravity

03:52and what it, what will happen on earth in our gravity. And the students will look at those two

03:59and interpolate what it might be in Mars gravity. And the idea, and they were pretty good with this.

04:06They said that it would be a good thing to know how the rate of corrosion on Mars, if we're starting to

04:10build outposts and stuff there, because you're 186 million miles from the closest lows and you can't

04:15just replace everything really easy. Right. So that's, that's their experiment. It's, and it's pretty nifty,

04:22I think, but I don't think there's much out there like it. All right. Now that the, the conclusion when

04:28the, the, um, and let's talk a little bit about the actual expo. And, uh, when they,

04:36Douglas Bird found out that their project was going to the, to the International Space Station.

04:44Um, well, the expo has been about three weeks or so ago and all schools that were involved in this

04:51project wasn't just obviously Douglas Bird. They choose a winner. It was, uh, some, they had three

04:57categories, elementary school category, and all the Douglas Bird elementary schools were involved,

05:02and then a middle upper school category. So our Douglas Bird middle and upper schools involved,

05:07and then an at-large category. And so you had to, you were judged at the school level first,

05:13and two or three experiments, I think, got to move along. And then those were judged at the expo level.

05:21And so the expo, every school was here with all the teachers and kids. It was awesome.

05:25Uh, there were folks from NASA and the kids got to see a lot of nifty little things, but, uh,

05:31and they announced the winners that day. So, and, and a Douglas Bird graduate, uh, doctor or doctor,

05:37uh, Tony Antonelli, he, uh, he's a astronaut, a former astronaut, right? Retired astronaut.

05:44So he spoke and handed out awards and that was pretty nifty too. So.

05:48Okay. And, uh, we got, we got some of your students that were involved with the,

05:53the, the, with the project on the zoom. Hey guys, how are y'all doing?

05:57Hey, you gotta unmute your, um, unmute your, um, um, uh, computer.

06:05Yep. Uh, hello. Hey.

06:07Hey. Now, how, how did it feel to know that you guys won? And then, were you guys excited? What went through your head?

06:15Um, honestly, um, all of us, we were so shocked. We like covered our mouths as soon as we heard it.

06:24And we, we were like really excited.

06:28Okay. Then now, are you guys excited about going to the Cape to see your,

06:32your project go up to the international space station?

06:35Yes, definitely. You know, we're super excited to go to Florida and see it launch. So yeah.

06:46All right. Now, um, uh, what, what do you, what are you guys looking forward to on the trip?

06:52Uh, today experiences and learning new things, I would say, uh, it's going to be a different

07:09experience seeing the launch. We might see a different experience, see something different

07:14than we're not used to. It could push us into a different career path. There's a lot of things

07:18that can happen from this trip. So we're taking this pretty seriously. Yeah.

07:24And then, how does it feel to know that, um, that Douglas Byrd, the, the alumni, they made it all

07:32the way to NASA and became an astronaut and they see that you guys are possibly following in his footsteps?

07:38Well, um, I'll say that meeting Tony Antonelli gave us a different perspective on where you can get.

07:57He came from the same classrooms that we are in today. He, he was starting here. He walked through

08:07these hallways and now he's in NASA. So it makes me think I can be NASA too. So.

08:17All right, man. Now, before we get out of here, is there anything else that anybody wants to add?

08:25Um, I believe this is one of the first steps to encourage other schools to do events like this,

08:32because, um, like our, uh, teacher, Ms. Renfro said, not many students get the experiences that we have.

08:38So it'd be great to see in the future that more schools like lower level schools or higher level

08:43schools, um, they all get to participate in these events.

08:47All right. Now, uh, you want to, anybody want to give any shout outs before we, before we get out of here?

08:53Um, can you give a shout out to Ms. Renfro and Ms. Sid Noor? That's our, uh, English teacher as well.

09:00All right. Hey, you're trying to get that A, aren't you?

09:06All right.

09:07And a shout out to John Bright, sir.

09:09Say again?

09:09And a shout out to John Bright, sir.

09:12Okay.

09:13He's the chemistry teacher that, uh, has helped us out over at FSU.

09:17All right. Hey, you guys are doing great work and, uh, possibly looking at three future astronauts

09:25that amongst, uh, amongst us. And if you want to check it out on our, um, uh, on our Facebook page,

09:32and it's also going to be on foxy99.com, um, at mykissradio.com and 1077jams.com.

09:41So be sure to check out the Zoom, like it, share it, do, do whatever you got to do.

09:46Let's make this thing go viral.

09:49All right. And you guys over at Douglas Bird also have an open invitation to come back on

09:54The Bigger Picture whenever you guys will like.

09:58Thank you very much. We appreciate this. It's, it's good for the students to,

10:02to have this kind of exposure and experience, and we just appreciate it so much. We realize that

10:08nothing we've done can be done without the help of so many people.

10:12All right. The more The Bigger Picture is on the way. Good morning.

Denise Renfro | Bigger Picture

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