Ten year-old radio amateurs Maribel Laguna KK6IGY and Laisha Vergara KK6HZH hope to link up with the International Space Station next year.

The San Bernardino Sun newspaper reports both are students at the Dorothy Grant Elementary School in Fontana. The school has a popular amateur radio club with nearly 50 members which was founded by teacher Beverly Matheson KJ6RSX.

Beverly said originally she looked at the club as a platform to get students interested in cultures in other lands.

Using the club’s high frequency radio and portable antenna, students set up outside the classroom and take down after their weekly meetings — students have made contact with amateur radio operators such diverse places as Hungary, Maldovia, Japan and the Falkland Islands.

But now Beverly said she wants to personally, and with her students, delve more into science with ham radio as a platform for a STEM program at the school.

Along those lines, next year — before the end of school — the Grant Elementary School Amateur Radio Club will be talking with astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Read the full San Bernardino Sun story at
http://www.sbsun.com/media/20131213/young-radio-amateurs-at-fontana-school-anticipate-space-station-link

48 students sat their amateur license exam on November 7, 2013
http://www.k3lp.com/dges_field_day_3.htm