By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Hays USD 489’s students became astronauts Wednesday with a launch of a weather balloon into the upper atmosphere — vicariously, at least.

FHSU’s Science and Mathematics Education Institute launched a weather balloon from the Gross Memorial Coliseum parking lot as part of a four-day “Mission to Mars” themed workshop they are presenting to Hays students in Title I Part C Education Program this week.

The weather balloon carried a payload of about 15 pounds that included pressure, temperature and radiation sensors, as well as  a camera to record the flight and 3-D printed astronaut versions of the students.

The payload also contained a bag of Cheetos and cans of pop. Paul Adams, dean of the College of Education and coordinator of the balloon launch, said the bag of Cheetos will probably blow up as the air pressure decreases.

In addition, carrot seeds were included in the payload. The Title 1 students will be able to take home the seeds that have been exposed to radiation in the upper atmosphere as well as control seeds that stayed on the ground. They can plant those seeds and observe if there are any differences in how the plants develop.

Adams regularly participates in weather balloon launches and collects that data for use by students in the Science and Mathematics Education Institute during the school year.

Adams said he expected the latex balloon to travel to a height of about 87,000 feet. As a result of weather conditions Wednesday, the balloon only reached about 60,000 feet. At height, the decreased pressure resulted in the balloon enlarging to about 30 feet across. The balloons become so large they pop and then the payload usually takes about a half an hour to return to earth.

Adams was not sure how far the balloon would travel while it was aloft. Adams predicted the balloon would end up northeast of Russell. The balloon was found using GPS equipment north of Russell between the towns of Paradise and Fairport.

Adams has had balloons that ended up near the Nebraska border and as far away as Wichita. One balloon was caught in the jet stream and was tracked at 183 mph.

“We have traveled as much as 100 miles away, and we have ended up only five miles away,” he said.

Before the launch, two boys in the group said they thought the carrot seeds would burst because of the changes in air pressure. They did not think the seeds would grow. If they did grow, they did not think they would be edible.

Two girls said they thought the seeds would survive, but they may grow differently than the seeds that were not exposed to radiation.

All of the students said they had never participated in a weather balloon launch.

The balloon’s sensors recorded temperature, air pressure and radiation, and the camera recorded audio, but the video recording failed. The handle holding the children’s 3-D printed astronauts broke, sending the astronauts to earth from 25,000 feet up. The carrot seeds on board were recovered with the sensors.

Although some of the 3-D figures may have ended up in the Saline River, Adams said he has had lost payloads recovered.

Last winter, Hays High School lost a payload from a weather balloon at about 70,000 feet. The students used the opportunity to calculate where the payload may have landed. About a month ago, the payload was recovered about a mile from where the students estimated the payload landed.

Although part of Wednesday’s payload was lost, Adams said this can be a good lesson for the students on engineering. All the students will receive lost in space certificates for their missing astronauts.

Adams said allowing students to see science is not just something that happens in a classroom is an important aspect of the activity.

“Learning to work together as a group is part of it,” he said. “It is also the idea that you get to see that if you do an investigation, science is not just a bench thing that you do in a classroom. You design your investigation and then other members of your class design the payload box and ‘I am going to do the testing.’ It shows to do a significant study, it requires all sorts of skills.

“There is also a workforce development element,” he said, “because it looks at the fact that it takes multiple skills and not everyone is a scientist, but ‘I like to build.’ ‘I’m an engineer.’ I think it follows along with our focus on workforce skills.”

Depending on the teacher, a weather balloon launch can focus on coding, studying atmospheric conditions or engineering the payload.

Teacher Megan Adams, Paul Adam’s daughter, of Fowler USD 225 helped FHSU students and Makerspace staff Eric and Erin Adams, also Paul Adam’s children, in guiding the 18 students through hands-on activities and experiments this week related to getting to Mars, building on Mars, communicating through space and exploring Mars.

Securing eggs for a safe four-story drop, a visit to the Planetarium, constructing a Mars community and creating rovers is providing an out-of-this-world experience and challenging students to be forward-thinking and universe ready, Starla Gano of the Kansas Title I Part C Education Program said in a news release.

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Although Hays has many early childhood resources, parents are not always aware of those programs and there are gaps in transitioning children from one program to the next, said stakeholders at a meeting Tuesday in Hays with the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund.

Multiple state agencies collaboratively have received a federal planning grant to do a needs analysis and strategic plan for early childhood education in Kansas.

The attendees broke into small groups to discuss community strengths, visions for the future and gaps in early childhood services.

Although many of the participants were from Hays, some attendees represented other nearby northwest Kansas communities.

The groups listed a variety of strengths in early childhood support.

Some of these include a safe community, low cost of living, Hays Public Library, Early Childhood Connections, an interagency committee, the upcoming Hays ARC Park, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Hays Recreation Commission, numerous quality parks, church support, Parents as Teachers, Tiger Tots and the intergenerational preschool at Via Christi.

As the discussion progressed, participants noted there is still a need for quality, affordable child care in Hays and outlying communities, especially for infants.

Although qualifying families have access to quality Headstart programs, children who are in private child care do not have the access to the same educational opportunities, participants said during group discussion.

Children’s education is left to parents, who may not be aware of the education goals their children need to reach by kindergarten or what resources are available in the community to help their children reach those goals.

One participant said this can result in children starting kindergarten unable to perform basic tasks such as being able to use scissors or grip a pencil or glue stick.

One group suggested the community offer a parent training academy to teach parents what skills their children will need to know when they enter kindergarten.

Transportation can be issue for families seeking early childhood services both in and outside of Hays, participants said.

Another group raised concerns about the availability of mental health care for children and existing wait lists in the community.

Gov. Laura Kelly attended the first portion of the engagement session and offered opening remarks.

Early in her career, Kelly worked as a recreational therapist with children.

“I learned first hand the importance of early childhood development — that it is critical to our kids’ health mentally, emotionally and physically,” she said.

“It was through my early work in the psychiatric center for children in New York and even before that when I worked in a prison for boys in Illinois. … In both of those settings, I worked mostly with adolescents, and it was very clear to me that it was too late — that we really needed to get to these kids early on, at birth, if we were really going to get them on the right track,” she said.

She said her goal as governor is to implement a robust early childhood structure across the state.

“There is no clearer reflection of the state’s priorities than the state budget,” she said. “I put my commitment to children and families front and center in my budget recommendations, but those smart investments will mean little without smart leadership steering the work of the early childhood folks.”

Despite the success of Kansas’ current early childhood community, the status quo will not propel the state forward, Kelly said.

“In today’s rapidly changing world, we must continually build on our past successes and aim even higher,” she said.

She noted research has shed more light on early childhood development since the Children’s Cabinet was established in 1999.

Children make more than a million neural connections each second from birth to age 3, she said.

“We know that those neurons form a brain architecture that sets a child’s entire life trajectory,” Kelly said. “We know that brain development is influenced by many factors, including a child’s relationships, experiences and environment. We know that these developments are cumulative and sequential for better for worse, which means our efforts to build a future workforce pipeline hinges on this early childhood period of life.”

Kelly said public/private partnerships need to be created to seamlessly transition children between early childhood education to K-12 education to technical schools and post-secondary education to the workforce.

“I am passionate about this because not only this is the right thing to do,” Kelly said, “but it reminds us that all of our futures are linked together. We all have skin in this game.”

Similar early childhood engagement sessions are being conducted throughout the state and will be used in developing a strategic plan for the state this fall. You can share your input at kschildrenscabinet.org/share.

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The Hays USD 489 school board is setting its sights on a bond election in 2020.

Board members directed staff during a facilities planning meeting Monday night to develop time lines for either a spring or September  2020 school bond election.

The Hays district has had two failed bond elections in three years — one in 2016 and another in 2017. The district has only had one $10 million bond in the last 40 years.

No decisions have been made as to what the school bond issue will contain, but the board continues to come back to three issues on its priority list — finish upgrades to the Hays High School HVAC system, renovate and expand Roosevelt Elementary School and expand the cafeteria at Hays Middle School.

Rusty Lindsay, USD 489 buildings and grounds director, said he receives the most complaints about the district’s HVAC systems, and those issues are spread across all buildings. He also said HVAC is an area that has the highest likelihood of a catastrophic failure.

Addressing the HVAC systems in a bond would leave more money in the yearly capital improvement budget to complete projects at other buildings, Lindsay said.

Roosevelt Elementary School is the newest of the four elementary schools. Adding two sections of each grade to Roosevelt would allow the district to vacate Lincoln Elementary School, which is more than 90 years old and has substantial infrastructure problems.

The district may also be able to reap savings from the efficiency of having three versus four elementary buildings.

The board members discussed the need to do smaller bonds over shorter time frames. They discussed trying for a 10 to 15-year bond with a tax ask of $10 to $15 per month on a $150,000 home.

Board member Lance Bickle said he still hoped the district could establish a long-range plan for what it hopes to accomplish in incremental bonds over multiple 10-year bond cycles.

However, Superintendent John Thissen said planning too far in advance could doom the bond the board is working on now. Further needs can be very different in 10 years than they are now.

“This is the first base step,” he said. “No matter what happens in the future, this needs to be done.”

He added if the district did these three base projects, it would have flexibility to move in a variety of directions in the future.

The board agreed to have time set each month on their agenda to discuss the bond issue. In July, the board will look at a timeline for the bond. Lindsay will report back to the board in August.