A NASA image for the Lunar Orbiter Program. The SSEP Mission 17 to ISS Orbiter payload of experiments is named in honor of the Lunar Orbiter Program.
The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education, are proud to present the 60 Mission Patches selected for flight to the International Space Station (ISS) for Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) Mission 17 to ISS. The selected flight patches shown below resulted from local art and design competitions meant to capture the spirit of SSEP in each Mission 17 community.
The mission patch competitions foster community-wide awareness and engagement in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program – an initiative that takes students, teachers, and the community at large to the space frontier through immersion in an authentic research experience. The 39 selected Mission 17 microgravity flight experiments from student teams, representing the 37 communities participating in Mission 17, comprise the SSEP Orbiter experiments payload, named after NASA’s Lunar Orbiter Program.
As a historical note, mission patches have been part of human spaceflight since the days of Project Mercury in the 1960s (see, e.g., this page at the NASA History Program Office). The SSEP Mission Patch competitions therefore allow communities to engage in another authentic aspect of the space program. From an education standpoint, the mission patch component of SSEP forges interdisciplinary connections between STEM fields and art and design, so that SSEP is a true STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) initiative.
Across 35 of 37 Mission 17 to ISS communities conducting Mission Patch art and design competitions, 35,589 grade K-16 students were engaged, and 34,586 patch designs were submitted. Judges within the communities selected the 60 patches shown below.
You can also read more about the Mission 17 to ISS Patch Competition at the main SSEP website.
Quickly Scroll to Individual Communities
- Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
- Ukraine
- Phoenix, Arizona
- Glendora, California
- Moreno Valley, California
- Hillsborough County, Florida
- Osprey, Florida
- Viera, Florida
- Jonesboro, Georgia
- Grayslake, Illinois
- Lake Charles, Louisiana
- University System of Maryland, Maryland
- Westland, Michigan
- Edina, Minnesota
- Las Vegas, Nevada
- Camden, New Jersey
- Springfield, New Jersey
- Albany, New York
- Brooklyn, New York – BSEA
- Buffalo/Niagara, New York
- Garden City, New York
- Long Beach, New York
- Lynbrook, New York
- Red Hook, New York
- Pickerington, Ohio
- Gervais, Oregon
- Erie, Pennsylvania
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – CCAC
- Bandera, Texas
- Burleson, Texas
- Ector County, Texas
- McKinney, Texas
- Texarkana, Texas
- Renton, Washington
- iForward-Grantsburg, Wisconsin
1. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
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Edmonton Public Schools’ SSEP Mission Patch Competition was open to all division students in kindergarten to grade nine. There were two competitions: kindergarten to grade four and grades five to nine. 209 grade K-4 students participated and submitted patch designs and 205 grade 5-9 students participated and submitted patch designs. The patches were judged by panels of students, staff, and family members. Seven schools submitted patches to the Division level competition. Two patches were selected to represent the community alongside the winning experiment. The patches selected to represent Edmonton Public Schools were created by Tiana Brown (a grade 4 student at Soraya Hafez School) and Lorelai Lee (a grade 6 student at Belgravia School). Congratulations to all students that participated!
2. Ukraine
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In Ukraine, a one patch competition was conducted. A total of 102 students participated and 81 patch designs were submitted. The members of the winning design team are Yuliya Paniv, 7th grade; Daryna Altunina, 7th grade; Ivanna Sukhan, 8th grade; Ivan Pika, 8th grade; Valery Voytovych, 8th grade; Lukyan Strotsyak, 9th grade; Serhiy Belikov, 10th grade. The patch describes an astronaut flying into space as a statue of Apollo. In the background, the Moon, the Earth and the stars characterize the universe’s infinity. The image was created using a simple pencil and gouache.
3. Phoenix, Arizona
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Pendergast Elementary School District conducted a two patch competition. 1,774 grade K- 4 students and 1,542 grade 5-8 students across 4 schools submit patch designs to their art teachers. The schools then submitted finalists to the district and the district chose a winner for each grade level category. The K-4 winner is Braxtin Fifer, 4th grade. The 5-8 winner is Mia Sanchez, 6th grade.
4. Glendora, California
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The Glendora Unified School District conducted one Mission Patch competition, which was open to all students enrolled in grades 9-12 at Glendora High School. The school’s art department publicized and collected submissions. We were very happy to have 178 students create and submit Mission Patch designs that represent the Glendora community’s participation in Mission 17. A small committee of three district directors narrowed the designs to the top seven entries, then voting was opened to a larger committee of district employees who selected the winning design. We celebrate Sadie Lopez, high school senior, for her winning patch design which incorporates local symbols of time honored Glendora traditions.
5. Moreno Valley, California
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This year Moreno Valley Unified School Year decided to expand the Mission Patch Art and Design Competition to include elementary schools. The SSEP Patch Competition was the perfect opportunity to engage young scholars through Art in STEAM. The two competitions recognizing two different student groups were 5th grade elementary and secondary students. This year 386 grade 5 students designed Mission Patches and 777 grade 6-12 students designed Mission Patches for the district competition. The students used their artistic skills to represent the winning SSEP experiment “The Strength of Concrete with Eggshells as Filler in Microgravity.” The student patches exhibited pride in our district and community. The winning patches were selected based on the guidelines provided by the Mission Patch Art and Design Competition. The two winning patches are from Sugar Hill Elementary School and Valley View High School. The judges were impressed with the attention to detail, creativity, and representation of their community, district, and schools, expressed in the sketches.
6. Hillsborough County, Florida
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Hillsborough County Public Schools opened the Mission 17 Patch Competition to 13,265 school students in our community, which represented 187 schools. We divided the competition – one for Kindergarten through Fifth Grade students, with 109 students submitting patches and another for Sixth through Eighth Grade students, with 252 students submitting 36 patches. 361 students drew a design and 145 patches met the requirements for judging by a committee of teachers and community leaders. The Kindergarten through Fifth Grade Mission Patch winner is Daniel Torres 4th Grade Morgan Woods Elementary, Tampa, Florida. The winning patch from the Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade competition is Aadrita Roy 7th Grade Randall Middle School, Lithia, FL.
7. Osprey, Florida
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Pine View School in Sarasota County, Osprey hosted two Art Patch Competitions. We opened the competition to all of Pine View’s 1,670 students in grades 2-12. All teachers at our school received information about the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) and many had their classes view the videos on the SSEP website which got the students excited about the ISS, microgravity, and participating in the Patch Design contest! We had 412 submissions from students at our school grades 2-12 (2-6th grade: 247 submissions and 7-12th grade: 165 submissions). Our SSEP Art Patch Jury picked one from each grade level, then TWO were picked as the OVERALL WINNERS! The winning patch from grades 2-6 was created by Varshini Ganesh (6th Grade) and the winning patch from grades 7-12 was created by Alexandra Wade (10th Grade). Pine View School community is very excited to send our SSEP Mini-Lab and Mission Patches to the International Space Station in 2023.
8. Viera, Florida
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Pinecrest Academy Space Coast engaged all K-8 students in the SSEP Mission Patch Art and Design competition as part of the STEM and Art curriculum. There were two separate competitions, one for all students in kindergarten through grade 5, and another for grades 6 through 8. All 439 students who participated at the K-5 level and all 230 students who participated at the 6-8 level submitted individual patch designs. Their work was judged by panels of teachers, administrators and staff members. The patches selected to represent our district were created by Aria Bjerke, a 4th grade student from Pinecrest Academy Space Coast Elementary, and James Machuga, an 8th grader from Pinecrest Academy Space Coast Middle School. All patches created by our students are put on display in the school to celebrate our participation in the SSEP. The winning patches are turned into large format posters and displayed in the Central administration office to honor these students’ accomplishments.
9. Jonesboro, Georgia
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Clayton County Public District invited all K-12 students to the SSEP Mission Patch Art and Design competition as part of the art curriculum. The Elementary Schools Mission Patch Design consisted of K-5 students that participated in their school-based competition (roughly 9,500) while the Secondary Schools Mission Patch Design consisted of 6-12 students that submitted designs for their school-based competition (roughly 600). We were delighted to have over 200 students advance to the final round for judging and after reviewing all submissions, the judges selected Jael Perez from Kemp Elementary School and Karla Aquino from Stilwell School of the Arts. We are proud to have these students representing Clayton County and SSEP!
10. Grayslake, Illinois
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The College of Lake County proposed a 2 patch competition. The first patch competition was open to all college art students (including graphic media design) currently numbering over 700 in the college. Over 100 students in this category were engaged in the patch design contest. Milagros Velez submitted the winning entry for art students. The second patch design contest was open to all remaining CLC college students (thousands). Over 100 students in this category were engaged in the patch design. Giselle Melchor submitted the winning entry for the contest open to all students of the college. The total number of submissions was 152. The entries were judged by a committee that included both art and science faculty and one patch from each design group was chosen.
11. Lake Charles, Louisiana
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The Region 5 STEM Center sponsored a mission patch contest for SSEP Mission 17. Any K-12 student in Region 5 (Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron, Jeff Davis, and Vernon Parish) could enter the contest at his/her school. Each school in the region was expected to designate a judge to pick the school’s winning patch; with the art teachers conducting the contest at each school. Each school’s winning patch was to be sent to district-level art consultants, specialists, etc. to pick the region’s winning patch. For Region 5, 53 middle school students participated in the competition and Mission 17’s winning Mission Patch artist was 6th grader Jordyn Mitchell. He attends S. J. Welsh Middle school, and his teacher is Dana Istre.
12. University System of Maryland, Maryland
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The University System of Maryland SSEP Mission 17 to ISS Patch Design Competition engaged 42 students (grades 10-16) from DuVal High School, Salisbury University, Towson University, and University of Maryland College Park. Most students competed to submit one patch for the competition, leading to 44 patch submissions. A committee composed of 4 members (three artists, one scientist) selected the finalist. Claire Dolan (Salisbury University) describes her winning design: “To me, this design connects Maryland to the program better than most of my other ideas, the Black-Eyed Susan being the state flower. […] I believe this design relates most to the purpose of the mission, which is exploring the effects of microgravity. The reason I think that this design connects with that mission is because flowers and other plants fight and grow against gravity every day.”
13. Westland, Michigan
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Wayne-Westland Community Schools held two patch design competitions within the district for its first SSEP experience. The elementary competition engaged 190 4th and 5th grade students at Walker-Winter and David Hicks Elementary schools. 17 teacher-selected patches were sent on as semi-finalists for final voting. The middle school patch design contest was held between 108 6th graders from Franklin Middle School where 11 semi-finalist patches were sent on for final voting. The patch design contest winners are 5th grader Amerie Parkes from Walker-Winter Elementary and 6th grader Ja’Caela Wade from Franklin Middle School. In addition to celebrating the flight of our winning patches, our district will continue to highlight and celebrate the amazing work of our participants and semi-finalists in the months to come.
14. Edina, Minnesota
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Edina Public Schools held two mission patch contests: one at Elementary level and one at the Secondary level. A total of 783 students chose to submit their designs for the competition. At the elementary level 427 5th grade students participated in the creation of Mission 17 patches across four elementary schools, and 386 students submitted their designs for the competition. 5th grade students from all schools voted from the top three of each school, and decided the winning elementary patch. At the secondary level 865 art students grades 6-12 participated. A total of 397 students chose to submit their mission patches for the competition. All the secondary students voted from the top three patches from each school, and selected the winning secondary patch.
15. Las Vegas, Nevada
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Pinecrest Academy St. Rose conducted 2 mission patch competitions. The first mission patch design competition was open to all 660 students in grades K-5, with 205 students participating. The second mission patch design competition was open to all 372 students in grades 6-8, with 167 students participating. A total of 372 patch designs were submitted. Administrators from Pinecrest St. Rose chose the top 3 patches for each competition. Those patches were then voted on by the entire student body as well as the teaching staff at Pinecrest St. Rose. Emery Gutierrez, a fourth grade student, won the K-5 competition and Sara Sharma, an eighth grade student, won the 6-8 competition. The winners were announced to the community through a weekly newsletter.
16. Camden, New Jersey
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Camden’s Promise Charter School conducted a two mission patch competition. One for elementary students, grades 2-4, and one in the secondary students, grades 5-12. In the Elementary School Mission Patch Design Contest 300 students participated with each student submitting one patch design. In the Secondary School Mission Patch Design Contest, Art students in grades 5 – 12 were invited to participate with 100 students participating. One design from each competition was selected as the winner.
17. Springfield, New Jersey
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The Springfield Public Schools held two patch design competitions: one for K-5 students, and a second for grades 6-12. A total of 1,105 students in grades K-5 participated in patch design in their art classes and submitted an original design. As part of the grades 6-12 selection process, 288 students participated through our middle school art classes, or through the high school’s Studio Art class, Graphic Design class, and Art Club. Emily Tavares, a 5th grader at James Caldwell Elementary School, created the patch chosen for grades K-5. Valery Arias, a 7th grader at Florence M. Gaudineer Middle School, created the patch chosen for grades 6-12. These finalist students will be recognized at a future Board of Education meeting.
18. Albany, New York
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The SSEP Experimental Design competition occurred in our Grade 8 Science classes, so we expanded our SSEP Mission Patch competition to all Middle School Students to generate excitement for future SSEP participation in Grades 6 and 7 and to retain SSEP momentum in Grade 8. About 1,800 students in Grades 6, 7, and 8, who attended all 3 Middle School buildings that participated in the proposal design, were invited to create a mission patch and description. Encouraged by their teachers, students worked individually on their patch designs by hand and on the computer. Teachers generally provided about one class period to start the patch to support students and then the work was finished by students individually and asynchronously. The patches and attached rationales were evaluated blindly by an internal team of teachers and administrators using a Google Form to assess the patches and rationales; the winning patch was decided by consensus by a committee that was similar to the proposal evaluation committee. The City School District of Albany is excited to send our SSEP Mini-Lab and Mission Patch to the International Space Station this Spring 2023.
19. Brooklyn, New York – BSEA
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New York City School District 18 (Brooklyn) hosted two Mission Patch Competitions. Both competitions encouraged students to use their artistic skills to submit a graphic design to represent Mission 17, the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 17 Mission as well as the winning experiment, “The effects of microgravity on the germination of Raphanus sativus aka radish seeds”. The participating schools were Richard R. Green Elementary School (Grades K-5) and Brooklyn Science & Engineering Academy (BSEA Grades 6 – 8). Students learned about microgravity and the SSEP patch competition by exploring the SSEP website, researching about the space program and teacher lectures. A total of 150 students in grades 4-5 participated from PS 244, 150 patches were completed for review. A total of 245 students in grades 6 -8 participated from K763 BSEA, (grades 6 -8) 230 students submitted patches. The top 10 patches were selected by the SSEP Art Board in each school and submitted for final selection via student vote. Winning patches were announced during Townhall with award presentations by teachers and school leadership. The winning patches were designed by Sayfyah Russell (P.S 244, 5th grade) and Jessy Lin (BSEA, 8th grade).
20. Buffalo/Niagara, New York
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WNY SSEP conducted a mission patch competition to engage art and design students in the SSEP program. We formally engaged 253 students from Wellsville Central School and Lockport High School. The local review panel received 47 flight patch designs and recognized the top 3 and one honorable mention. The flight patch chosen for flight on the ISS was designed by a 10th grade student from Wellsville.
21. Garden City, New York
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Garden City School District engaged all K-12 students in the SSEP Mission Patch Art and Design competitions as part of the art curriculum. We had two separate competitions (grades K-5 and 6-12). About 1,900 students participated in the K-5 competition and about 1,500 students participated in the 6-12 competition. Altogether, Garden City students created over 3,000 individual patch designs. Their work was judged by panels of teachers, administrators and staff members. The patches selected to represent the Garden City School District were created by Natalie Yu, a 3rd grade student from the Startford Avenue Elementary School, and XinXin (Tina) Tu, a 9th grader from the Garden City High School. The patches designed by our students are put on display throughout different school buildings to celebrate our participation in the SSEP.
22. Long Beach, New York
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Long Beach Public Schools conducted two Mission Patch Design Contests for our first flight to the International Space Station. The patches embody and symbolize Long Beach Public Schools’ excitement to bridge the oceans and waters of our hometown Barrier Island with the ocean of outer space. We held two competitions: one for grades K-5 and one for grades 6-12. The teachers in our S.T.E.A.M. Departments across our District’s six buildings administered the contest. The total number of students from K-5 who participated was 499, and the total number of students from grades 6-12 was 472, for a total of 971 students districtwide. 147 patch designs were submitted as finalists to our review committee of interdisciplinary educators and administrators, and from those we were proud to select our two winning finalists.
23. Lynbrook, New York
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Lynbrook School District engaged the entire K-12 student body in the SSEP Mission Patch Art and Design Competition. The competition was separated into two divisions, one elementary and one secondary. The elementary division received 170 submissions and the secondary division received 118 submissions. A team of educators chose four semifinalists from each division. The semifinalist’s artwork was evaluated by a panel of expert judges to determine the winners. Ultimately, 4th grader Brielle Vainroob from Waverly Park Elementary School was selected as the elementary winner and 12th grader Mia Rodriquez from Lynbrook Senior High School was selected as the secondary winner. All the entries spent a month in the district art gallery and are being displayed in art and science classes across the district to celebrate participating in the SSEP.
24. Red Hook, New York
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Red Hook Central School District conducted a one mission patch design competition for students in grades 7 – 12. Two art teachers from Linden Avenue Middle School and three art teachers from Red Hook High School offered the opportunity to their students and 210 students created and submitted a Mission Patch design for the Mission 17 trip to the International Space Station. It was a fun and informative real-life experience for our art students and the artwork that the students created for this competition was out of this world. Although selecting the winner of this competition was not easy, two elementary art teachers from our district judged the artwork and selected the winning design based on its appealing contrast, beautiful details, and its inclusion of information about Mission 17, Apollo’s 50th, RHCSD, and Sea Monkeys (the Mission 17 science experiment selected for our district). The artist who designed the winning patch is Taia Mokii who is currently in 9th grade at Red Hook High School. She is an extremely talented and hardworking art student who is originally from Ukraine. Taia incorporated the Ukrainian flag into her design as well as the red and white color scheme of our school district. We are very proud of Taia and all of our students who created patch designs for this competition.
25. Pickerington, Ohio
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The Pickerington Local School District community invited 11,000 Pickerington students to enter the SSEP Mission 17 Art Patch Competition. The primary school division, grades K-6, received 634 art patch submissions, while the secondary school division, grades 7-12, received 75 submissions. A key factor in generating interest in the competition was the collaboration between visual art teachers and media center specialists, providing research opportunities into space exploration and the history and tradition of mission patches. Additionally, our flight experiment, “Bamboo Growth in Microgravity,” influenced many students to create mission patches with images representing the experiment. Our two winners are Grace O’Grady, a Pickerington High School Central senior, and Ava Leidheiser, a third-grade student from Sycamore Creek Elementary. During an upcoming school board meeting, the Pickerington community will recognize our two art patch competition winners and SSEP project finalists.
26. Gervais, Oregon
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The Flight Patch competition for Gervais High School was conducted after our winning experiment had been selected, a mold experiment. This allowed students to incorporate the experiment into their patch design. All students of Gervais High School were introduced to the competition during their Advisory class, getting to see a slideshow about the mission, experiment, official NASA mission patches, and previous SSEP Mission patches as examples. Students were then given a handout that had a template of the required dimensions to draw in, as well as the other specifications. Student’s were required to come up with a design that embodied our school, the experiment, and for bonus points commemorated the Apollo moon landings. The assignment was a required, graded activity in all Advisory classes to ensure the required number of participants would submit something. Out of a total of 321 enrolled students, a total of 226 designs were submotted to go through the selection process. The submissions were narrowed down to the top designs that incorporated something about our community, the experiment, and the moon. At the point, a panel of teachers voted for the most successful design and arrived at an image based design created by one of our Seniors, Eric Morales. It shows our schools mascot, licking a moldy moon done in pen in full color.
27. Erie, Pennsylvania
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Another element of the SSEP process is a Mission Patch Art and Design Competition allowing hundreds of students across the community (K-12) to capture through art and design their community’s SSEP experience. Up to two Mission Patches accompany the community’s selected flight experiment to low Earth orbit, one from Iroquois Elementary School and one from Iroquois Junior/Senior High School. In terms of an experience that mirrors America’s space program, astronauts for every NASA crewed mission work with a NASA artist to design a mission patch that captures the mission objectives. It is worn on their flight suits and brands mission documentation. Students in grades Kindergarten through twelve participated and six finalists from each building were chosen by school-based committees. A vote was conducted and one patch from each school was chosen to represent the district. There were 342 students who participated at Iroquois Elementary and due to student excitement and creation of multiple designs by some students, 447 designs were submitted. There were 100 students who participated at Iroquois Junior/Senior High and 100 unique designs were submitted. The winning patches are Cameron Cadden, grade 6 and Elliot Kemp, grade 8.
28. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – CCAC
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CCAC hosted two patch competitions that involved high school students working independently and in collaboration with CCAC faculty and staff. The former involved approximately 101 students, and the latter involved more than 112 students. Participants attended CCAC, or one of the following high schools in the Pittsburgh area: Carlynton, Mt. Lebanon, Chartiers Valley, Quaker Valley, Cornell, South Fayette, Keystone Oaks, Sto-Rox, Montour, Upper St. Clair, West Allegheny and Moon Area. Many students were part of career and technical education programs and also attended the Parkway West Career and Technology Center for part of their school day. The competition resulted in 15 finalist designs which will be exhibited gallery-style on CCAC’s Allegheny Campus. One patch from each competition was selected for flight through an evaluation process involving CCAC faculty, the student experimenters, and a panel of regional space experts. Both winning designs integrated elements of spaceflight with the experimental theme of fighting cancer. One patch symbolizes this with a purple ribbon around the space shuttle, while the other fuses stars and cells around a central microscope. Both winning designs were submitted by Career and Technology Education (CTE) students. CCAC is in the process of transforming both of these winning designs into patches for presentation to officials at all participating schools, the Allegheny County Executive and other community leaders who have supported SSEP.
29. Bandera, Texas
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The Bandera, TX mission patch design competition was between all of the ART students at our campus (Grades 6-8) which is approximately 187 students. Our SSEP Leadership team selected the top 25 patches at the end of October. The 25 patches were displayed at our Space Night Event early November where the community voted for our top patches to submit to SSEP. The winning mission patch by 8th grader Eva Lee at Bandera Middle School.
30. Burleson, Texas
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Students from Burleson ISD in Burleson, Texas participated in the SSEP Mission 17 Patch Competition, with approximately 1,200 students participating. Two competitions were held, one for grades K-5 and the other for grades 6-12. There were 922 mission patch submissions for grades K-5, and approximately 300 submissions for grades 6-12. Kindergarten through 12th-grade students supported our SSEP Experiment Design teams with their individual patch designs after a call for submissions. The schools submitted their patches through their art classes or individually through an online form. Mission patch finalists from each school were displayed during our official district “Space Night” in which our experiment design students show off their various experiment ideas. The winning K-5th grade patch was designed by Anna Jansen, a 5th grader from the Hajek Elementary School, and a member of Ms. Jessica Godfrey’s art class. Anna’s creative patch features an astronaut with a colorful border around the patch. The winning 6th-12th grade patch was designed by Cooper Womack, a 12th grader from Centennial High School and a previous patch design winner from Mission 11. His elegant patch features a rocket design with earth in the background. These patch designs were transformed into fabric patches and given to student finalists, teachers, board members, and Step 1 judges to show the district’s appreciation for their hard work and support for SSEP in our district. We congratulate the winners, and appreciate the hard work of all student participants!
31. Ector County, Texas
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Ector County Independent School District had 1,344 Pre-K through fifth-grade students and 983 sixth-grade through twelfth-grade students from 23 campuses participate in the Mission Patch Art and Design Competition. A total of 2,327 students Pre-K through twelfth-grade entered the contest, each creating an original mission patch design. Participating campuses held their own local contest and submitted up to two patches to the district-wide contest for final judging. The finalists selected from each campus included seventeen elementary campuses and six secondary campuses. The district-wide contest was opened to all staff members to cast a vote for their favorite elementary and secondary patch design. A total of 528 votes were cast over a seven-day period. The elementary winner is Edith Martinez, 5th grader at Dr. Lee Buice Elementary, and the secondary winner is Naelie Perez, 8th grader at Wilson & Young Medal of Honor Middle School.
32. McKinney, Texas
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Collin College ran two competitions. The dual credit competition resulted in 102 students participating. All submitted patches were initially reviewed by a panel of Collin College Art faculty members. 10 patches were then sent to a second panel of administrators from the district. After reviewing the finalists, Alayna Samnani’s patch submission was selected. Alayna is a dual credit student in Dr. Patrick Lewis’s Art Appreciation class at The Colony High School. Collin College’s second general education competition included ARTS classes from campuses across the district. 140 students participated. Aligning with the other competition, all submitted patches were initially reviewed by a panel of Collin College Art faculty members. 20 patches were then sent to a second panel of administrators from the district. After reviewing the finalists, Fernando Rodriguez’s patch submission was selected. Fernando is a student in Professor George Neal’s Art Appreciation class at the Frisco Campus.
33. Texarkana, Texas
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The Texarkana Independent School District completed the Mission Patch Design Competition on February 22, 2023. An elementary school patch competition involving our K-5 campuses and a secondary patch competition involving our middle and high school which engaged approximately 4000 students in the district were conducted. There were 2,570 mission patches submitted at our elementary level competition. At the secondary school level, there were 634 mission patches submitted. The Mission Patch committee, including teachers, administrators and community members, spent time evaluating the submissions before narrowing down the selections to the top 3 finalists at the elementary, 6-8 middle school, and 9-12 high school level. Our Elementary Patch winner was 5th grade student, Jayden Foreman from our Spring Lake Park campus. Our Secondary Patch winner was Freshman, Lizzie Sharp from Texas High School. All student finalists and patch competition winners will be honored.
34. Renton, Washington
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In Renton, Washington 250 students from three high schools (grades 9-12) participated each submitting an individual design. The high school art teachers selected five finalists. These were posted on our Instagram (@RentonCTE) and brought to the central office for in-person voting. The winning artist hopes to work for NASA one day and has already applied for summer internships there.
35. iForward-Grantsburg, Wisconsin
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iForward Wisconsin Online Charter School conducted a two mission patch competition for SSEP Mission 17 to the International Space Station; our sixth consecutive year taking part in this powerful learning opportunity connecting young scientists and artists from across the world. Our virtual online charter school educates approximately 1,100 students, grades K-12, from across the beautiful state of Wisconsin. The Mission 17 Patch Project engaged 190 iForward online students at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Students met the goal for the SSEP Art Patch Competition with 97 students participating in the grades K-7 competition and 93 students participating in the grades 8-12 competition. A total of 190 possible designs were submitted to the initial review committee vying for the trip aboard the International Space Station. Our winning participants, eleventh-grader Jivnic Degbedji and 2nd grader Kalen Dixon, met a proficient level in learning goals for science, technology, engineering, art/design, and math through their original creations. The designs were selected to represent the iForward online community on Mission 17.