Jenni Sidey-Gibbins is a 31-year-old from Calgary who has worked along the Canadian Space Agency and NASA.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED / Canadian Space Agency
November 14, 2019 - 10:11 AM
Some Kamloops elementary students will be chatting with an astronaut today.
Canadian astronaut Jenni Sidey-Gibbons will be speaking with grade five and six students at Kay Bingham Elementary School in Kamloops today, Nov. 14. Sidey-Gibbons will speak about her experiences in a video call, and will then take some questions from the students.
Teacher Lisa Pye says they often have guest speakers, but they've never had an astronaut speak to the children. She says she applied to have an astronaut speak with her class in the summer of 2018, and is happy to finally have the experience available for her students.
Sidey-Gibbons, who hasn't had a space mission yet, will be speaking to the kids about the training involved to become an astronaut.
“She will be talking about the Canadian Space Agency's junior space program which is an initiative to increase student interest in topics space, health and wellness, and I believe the other one is engineering,” Pye says.
Sidey-Gibbons was chosen as an astronaut recruit in 2017 and relocated to Houston for two years in the Astronaut Candidate Training Program at the Johnson Space Center, according to her biography. She received her bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from McGill University, where she spent her time working with the Canadian Space Agency researching flame propagation in microgravity. She then worked as an assistant professor at the Department of Engineering of the University of Cambridge and has taught students on thermodynamics, flame psychics, and alternative and conventional energy production.
To contact a reporter for this story, email Jenna Wheeler or call (250) 819-6089 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.
We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above.
News from © iNFOnews, 2019