International Space Camp Team Canada Biographies, cont'd

International Space Camp Team Canada Biographies, cont'd

ISC Team Canada CDR and teacher
Benjamin Jewiss during a simulated EVA at
Advanced Space Academy for Educators, 2013

Name: Benjamin Jewiss

ISC Team Canada Position: "Commander" (which is to say, "chaperone")

Education: OSSD/OAC, Huntsville High School, 2002; BA (Honours History) WLU, 2006; BEd, NipissingU, 2007; numerous additional qualifications through Ontario College of Teachers

Hometown: Nakina ON Canada, transplanted from Huntsville ON

Favourite Astronaut: Hybrid mashup of Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Pete Conrad

Favourite Space Quote: "We choose to go to the Moon! ... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..." 

                                                                                                      -- John F. Kennedy

Husband, brother, son; educator, learner, dreamer: ISC Team Canada CDR and Greentone-area teacher Benjamin Jewiss is a man of many parts.  Growing up in rural Ontario (which stood in for adventures on far away planents, distant lands and eons of time), he dreamed of exploring "strange new worlds." A keen sense of duty and responsibility, not to mention adventure, led him on his path as an educator on a different, more terrestrial frontier in the Canadian North where he met his true love and best friend Melanie.  Moving to the small village of Nakina (part of the municipality of Greenstone) in northwestern Ontario, Benjamin (along with now-wife Melanie and erstwhile canine companions Farley and Dexter) quickly became a respected, if somewhat eccentric, member of the community.  Known to some as the "Rocket Man" due to annual model rocket launches on New Year's and Canada Day as well as extracurricular rocketry clubs, Benjamin is also the 2nd Vice President and Poppy Committee Chairman of the local branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, a tenured teacher of Ojibwe Language and Culture and just about everything else at St. Brigid Catholic School and the Training Officer and Deputy Commanding Officer of the area's Royal Canadian Air Cadet squadron with the rank of Lieutenant.  He has attended Space Camp for Educators programs twice before, once in 2012, along with teachers from elsewhere in Ontario as well as Australia and the United States, and again in 2013 as the sole Canadian (in fact, sole non-American) member of the invitation only Advanced Space Academy for Educators.  Benjamin has been working for years to make the dream of sharing the life-changing experience of Space Camp with local students a reality, and he is thrilled that, through partnerships with parents and community businesses and members, two aspiring space explorers/engineers from small-town, northern Ontario will get the chance to explore "the final frontier" as part of International Space Camp Team Canada.