[Source: Doug Carroll, Arizona Republic] — It must be one of the more unusual e-mails ever received by the Gilbert Police Department: “I am trying to determine how much law enforcement is needed for our space station. Could you tell me the ratio of officers to residents in Gilbert?”
The query came from one of 140 fifth- and sixth-graders from eight schools in Mesa Public Schools, participants in a competition for which they build model space stations designed to support 100 people for two years. The students’ projects were informally evaluated this week at Frost Elementary School, one of five Mesa district schools in northwest Chandler.
The competition, created eight years ago to help students develop teamwork and problem-solving skills, is called the Honeywell Fiesta Bowl Aerospace Challenge. The entries of the district’s nearly three-dozen teams will be submitted for judging Dec. 4 at ASU West, and the finals will be Dec. 29 at the Challenger Space Center in Peoria. The winning team will receive a trip to Houston for a tour of NASA facilities. [Note: To read the full article, click here.]