Jamestown resident awarded Aslyn Otte was the recipient of NASA’s “You’ve got Perseverance” award for 2022. She was nominated for the award for her perseverance as a student at Jamestown Elementary School. PHOTO BY KIRK C. WATKINS[/caption]

Aslyn Otte, a recent student at Jamestown Elementary School, has been named the recipient of the You’ve Got Perseverance Award given by NASA to students that have demonstrated perseverance in their academic pursuits.

According to NASA’s website, https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ participate/got-perseverance/ “NASA’s Perseverance mission team is no stranger to challenges, as the team has faced and overcome many hurdles to get the rover to Mars. The team wants to encourage students to persevere, to embrace the idea of not giving up when things get tough and to overcome seemingly impossible challenges.”

Aslyn didn’t know she was in the running for the award, but in her final year of school at Jamestown Elementary, her teacher, Patrick Griffin, had entered her name for the honor. Griffin explained the process leading to him submitting Otte’s name to the Perseverance committee. “I received an email from my NASA feedback a few months ago that mentioned an award for middle school students called the Perseverance Award, which was related to the new Mars Rover,” he said. “Last school year, when Aslyn was still at JES, my class followed the progress of the Mars Perseverance Rover and Ingenuity Helicopter as they were launched, landed and deployed on Mars.” Griffin explained that the class seemed to enjoy checking in on the rover. “Of course, with my background in engineering, I like to show some of the exciting things NASA is doing to increase the kids’ interest in space and science. The Webb telescope is another one we have paid attention to this year.”

He continued, explaining “Aslyn, in particular, stood out. She showed a lot of interest in the rover and helicopter, and I also thought she had shown (quite often) perseverance in my classroom, as she was working through tasks that were assigned to her.”

Aslyn wasn’t aware that she had been nominated but was aware that Griffin thought she was qualified. “Patrick Griffin entered me in the contest because he said that he thought I would win,” she said.

Griffin explained why he was so confident. “Aslyn has always shown a high level of engagement in these areas, so she was a natural middle schooler for me to nominate,” he said, “I definitely thought about other kids too, but I could only nominate one.”

He continued to explain the process, “When I saw the award mentioned in my email, and the criteria for nomination of a middle school student was based on showing perseverance in some context, I had a number of my previous students pop into my mind,’’ he said. “However, Aslyn seemed to most exemplify the characteristics the Perseverance award was looking for, so he went with Aslyn. First, he had to check with her family, “I checked in with Mom and Dad to see if it was ok if I nominated Aslyn, and I wrote up a short blurb on how Aslyn showed perseverance through the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades, when she was in my classroom.”

Then they waited to find out. “We waited a month or two, and we heard back that the Mars Rover Team at NASA had selected Aslyn as one of the 20 students to receive the award. We then let Aslyn know about the award.” Griffin continued, “By being selected, she received a Perseverance package of goodies from NASA, and was able to sit in on the hour-long webinar where awardees were recognized by the NASA Perseverance team,” he said, “ach awardee could then ask questions directly of the NASA Rover team, which was pretty cool. Aslyn asked a good question about the Ingenuity helicopter.”

Lisa Cass, Aslyn’s mother, was able to attend the meeting with Aslyn. She gave her perspective of the event. “There were like twenty kids cross the country that won, and so we got to have a meeting with all of the Perseverance mission team on Zoom where the kids could ask questions about the Perseverance, and about Mars, and about space exploration, and about helicopters on Mars, and all kinds of great questions. And it was super fun, and a great award. And they got a great package from the Perseverance too.”

Aslyn recounted meeting with others that had been nominated for the award. “Well, I had a sort of ceremony; at school I joined a Zoom call and there were other people who had also been elected for this award,” she said, describing the meeting.

When asked what she thought about receiving the award she said, “I think that I won’t have any more privilege, but I will feel more confident. I also think that I will just overall have more respect for myself, because when my parents would say “you’re so smart”, I thought that they were just being nice to me because I am their daughter.”

Her mother, at least, is not just being nice. “She’s rocking it. She got the Centennial Cyclone of the month award, 4.0 G.P.A, like she’s persevering,” she said, “she’s the overachiever of the family, for sure.”

Her class at Jamestown was excited for her to win as well and followed her throughout the process. As a class, they logged into the webinar to congratulate and cheer on Aslyn!

For more information on the Mars Rover, and the “We’ve got Perseverance Award” please log in to their website: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ participate/ got- perseverance/ awardees/#Opportunity-2.