The youngsters from St George’s Preparatory School have joined hundreds of thousands of children across the UK on the big voyage of discovery.
St George’s is one of the thousands of schools to be sent a packet of 100 seeds, some that have spent six months in microgravity at the International Space Station on Soyuz 44S before returning to earth last month.
The children’s mission is to grow them alongside seeds that haven’t been to space and measure the differences between them over seven weeks. They won’t know which seed packet contains which seeds until all the results have been collected by the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and analysed by professional biostatisticians.
The experiment is part of Rocket Science, an educational project launched by the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and the UK Space Agency.
British astronaut Tim Peake has been at the ISS since December and sent a special message from space to all the children on this special mission, wishing them luck with their experiments.
Speaking while 400km above the surface of the Earth he said: “This is a really exciting week for the hundreds of thousands of young people across the country who will begin their Rocket Science experiments. I’d like to wish everyone taking part the best of luck with their investigations and I look forward to seeing some of the results.
“It’s possible that among those pupils taking part in the project are the young people who will help mankind reach the next big milestones in space exploration for the benefit of people on Earth. I hope the RHS Campaign for School Gardening’s Rocket Science experiment will spark curiosity and wonder amongst young people who may become the next generation of horticultural scientists.”
St George’s Deputy Head & Science Teacher Mr Timothy said: “We are very excited to be taking part in Rocket Science. This experiment is a fantastic way of teaching our pupils to think more scientifically and share their findings with the whole school.”
Results of the experiment will be published later in the year.
