CHILDREN AT Knowsley Junior School in Springhead are embarking on a voyage of discovery by growing seeds that have been into space.
In September 2015, 2kg of rocket seeds were flown to the International Space Station (ISS) to spend several months in microgravity before returning to Earth in March 2016.
The seeds were then sent to 10,000 schools across the UK as part of ‘Rocket Science’, an educational project by the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and the UK Space Agency.
The schools, including Knowsley, received a packet of 100 seeds from space which they will grow alongside 100 seeds that haven’t been to space – but they don’t know which is which.
Using equipment kindly donated by B&Q’s Oldham branch, the children planted the seeds in two sets of trays and the school’s eco council made labels out of milk bottles.
The seeds will sit in pride of place in a display in the school entrance hall and will be watered and monitored by pupils for 35 days to see how they grow.
The children will not know which packets contains which seeds until all their results have been collected and analysed by professional biostatisticians.
The experiment aims to help children think more about what astronauts need to survive long-term missions and the difficulties surrounding growing fresh food in challenging climates.
Mrs Hannah Jeffares, Assistant Headteacher at Knowsley Junior School, said: “We are very excited to be taking part in Rocket Science.
“The project aims to get the children involved and interested in science and this is a great way of doing that.
“We have sent some questions to Tim Peake and watched his launch into space so the children have already been really interested in space and what he’s doing.”
Rocket Science is just one educational project developed by the UK Space Agency to celebrate British ESA astronaut Tim Peake’s Principia mission to the ISS and inspire young people to look into careers in STEM subjects.
Follow the project on Twitter: @RHSSchools #RocketScience
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