CATHEDRAL COLLEGE WANGARATTA
SEEDS IN SPACE! They might look like ordinary Year Seven students, but they recently embarked on a mission to space! As part of their studies in Year Seven Agriculture and Horticulture, Cathedral College Wangaratta students sent seeds to the International Space station. The seeds spend six months in space so scientists can study how space affects them. The seeds have since been sent back to Earth to be planted at the College. Students will analyse and compare the growth of the returned seeds. Teacher Amanda Naish said students would now study the growth of six seeds that had been sent to space and six seeds that had stayed on Earth.
Student Abbey Cagalj said that she has been very excited about the project and the fact that she has held something that has been in space. When asked what she thinks will happen, Abbey feels the growth rates will be similar: “I actually think they will grow at the same rate but I think the taste might be different due to the lack of oxygen in space.” Students have learnt about topics such including space in general, the significance of growing plants in space, the germination process of plants and tips in making their own plant chambers to grow Basil. Cathedral College was the only Australian school to participate in this round of the program.
“We have set up a time lapse camera to take images for the next 30 days to capture the growth of the seeds,” she said. “Students will have to make observations, take photos and record plant growth, and then plot a graph using data collected and hypothesize how plant growth will be different in microgravity conditions. “Once we have collected our data, we share it with The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) where they use our data to compare and analyse it with the eight other countries that have also participated in the program.” ASC News 11
