Highlight of the Week

Growing seeds from Space

Year 5 and 6 pupils have become space biologists this week, embarking on a voyage of discovery by growing seeds that have been into space.

In September, 2kg of rocket seeds were flown to the International Space Station (ISS) on Soyuz 44S where have spent several months in microgravity before returning to Earth last month. The seeds have been sent as part of Rocket Science, an educational project launched by the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and the UK Space Agency.

The Cathedral School are one of up to 10,000 schools to receive a packet of 100 seeds from space, which they will grow alongside seeds that have not been to space and measure the differences over seven weeks. The children will not 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 Harper, Science Co-Ordinator at The Cathedral School, said: “We are very excited to be taking part in Rocket Science. This experiment is a fantastic way of giving our pupils the opportunity to learn about the sort of experiments scientists carry out and to gain real experience of involvement in carrying out such an investigation themselves.”

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.