Summerland students to program space satellite

Students in Summerland, B.C., still do plenty of reading, writing and arithmetic but this summer theywill be the first school in Canada to program a satellite in space.

It is part of a project developed byArdusatthat gives classes from around the world access to one of their micro-satellites for one week.

TrevorKnowlton, a careers teacher atSummerlandSecondary School, says the satellite will be launched on aSpaceXrocket this summer and they'll get access shortly after.

"They aretiny satellites, around 10 square centimetres and they have many different sensors on them,"said Knowlton.

The students are learning to programthe satellite througha coursecalledCode67, whichprovides a structured curriculum that can be accessed online by students of all ages from across the provinces.

"Each group of students can decide which sensors they use and what data they want to bring back from any given experiment."

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Right now the course isa pilot program, butKnowltonhopes it will become a key part of students' education.

"A huge technological change is happening in our world. Careerwise it is great, there is a lot of future there. Also just for daily life, for staying safe online."

Knowltonadmits some students have already surpassed his skills, buildingwebsitesand even running servers.

"Rarely does a teacher hand out a textbook where a students say we've already done chapters three four and six, but in this case we have a lot of students coming in with great skills."

To listen to the full interview with TrevorKnowlton, listen to the audio labelledSummerlandCoding.