For many kids, complex scientific formulas and theory fly in one ear and out the other because they have no idea when they’d use them in the real world.

Paul Verhage, a graduate student at the Kansas University is attempting to change this, and he’s enlisted students at Tyee Middle School to help him out.

Twenty-three 7th and 8th graders at Tyee, made up mostly of science and math class sections, have been enlisted to design and build satellites. These satellites will be tied to weather balloons and launched as high as 100,000 feet where they will record photos, video and data of temperature, humidity and sunlight.

The project is part of Verhage’s doctoral thesis about hands-on learning.

“Anytime you do a project-based lesson you increase student interest, and I’m hoping to show that’s the case,” Verhage said. “It’s when students don’t see an application, and they just listen to lectures all day, for those fence-sitters that’s how you can turn them off.”

Verhage began with a survey of the kids doing the project, and a group that will not participate. Another survey will follow at the end, and Verhage will be able to measure whether the projects have helped increase the students’ interest in math and science.

Even though the program at Tyee is in its early stages, some students have already shown more interest.

Jenny Stefaroi didn’t consider science her favorite subject. She prefers psychology and other social sciences. Since enrolling in the program, after it was suggested by her teacher James Burke, she is excited to be a part of actually putting the satellite together.

“I’m getting to construct something that I’ll probably never get to again,” said the 8th grader. “I thought it would be cool to be hands-on to put things together.”

Just a few weeks in, students are beginning to split off into three groups. One group will be responsible for soldering wiring and electronics, one will work on manually coding the website for data, and the final group will put the physical satellite together out of styrofoam, duct tape and other household materials.

This program fits well with Tyee’s mission, said Burke, who teaches science technology engineering and math (STEM) classes. He said there has been a national push to get students’ scientific and mathematical comprehension up, and finding ways to make programs more fun is the best way to do that.

“You’re not just learning about the little pieces of the puzzle,” Burke said. “You’re learning about the whole puzzle and how it pieces together.”

Turner Smith has long been interested in how the pieces fit together. His dad is a bit of a handyman at home, taking apart computers when they experience a problem. When Turner found out he had the opportunity to build his own computer boards, he jumped at the chance.

It makes going to school every day a little more fun and unpredictable, noting, “here, you’re always doing something new.”

The kids have until Feb. 19 to complete the satellites, at which point they will send them to Verhage. He will launch them into space to record their data, and then the results will go back to the students. They will have two weeks to process and analyze the reports.

The kids have attracted extensive local attention for this project. They will be honored at an event at Tyee Middle School Feb. 11 where climate scientists from the University of Washington, and representatives of Microsoft will be on hand to check out the project.