PUPILS at Radnor Valley Primary School have become space biologists and are embarking on a voyage of discovery by growing seeds that have been into space.
Last September, 2kg of salad rocket seeds were flown to the International Space Station (ISS) on Soyuz 44S where they spent several months in microgravity before returning to Earth in March. The seeds are part of Rocket Science, an educational project launched by the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and the UK Space Agency.
Radnor Valley is one of nearly 10,000 schools to receive a packet of 100 seeds from space, which they are growing alongside seeds that haven't been to space. They will be measuring the differences over the next seven weeks. The pupils won't know which seed packet contains which seeds until all results have been collected by the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and analysed by professional biostatisticians.
The out-of-this-world, nationwide science experiment will enable the pupils to think more about how we could preserve human life on another planet in the future, what astronauts need to survive long-term missions in space and the difficulties surrounding growing fresh food in challenging climates.
Mr Scruby, teacher at Radnor Valley said: "We are very excited to be taking part in Rocket Science. This experiment is a fantastic way of teaching our children to think more scientifically and share their findings with the whole school. We normally run a gardening club after school but this half term we have a small group of rocket scientists just to focus on these seeds."
The school is very grateful to The Old Railway Line Garden Centre at Three Cocks who donated the seed trays and other equipment for the experiment.
Rocket Science is just one educational project from a programme 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 (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects, including horticulture.
Follow the project on Twitter: @RHSSchools #RocketScience
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