ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst had two kilos of seed mixtures in his luggage at the end of 2018 when he set off on his “horizons” mission on the International Space Station (ISS).
In a blind experiment, elementary school students are now examining wildflower seeds from the earth and those that were exposed to different conditions in space.
Weyarn
- The Weyarn elementary school also takes part in the nationwide interactive campaign “Space Seeds”, which is organized by the space management of the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
Teacher Else Bucher (35), who planted flower beds with colleague Lisa Wildgruber and 39 fourth graders, reports on initial research results.
Ms. Bucher, your students sowed plant seeds that were already in space. How did that happen?
I did a teacher training course at ESA three years ago.
Back then on the subject of computer science and robotics.
It's really great what they offer.
That's why I was included in their email distribution list and found out about the Space Seeds hands-on campaign.
We then applied for the project and were accepted.
That's quite an honor when you consider how expensive it is to put a kilo of seeds into space.
And then your protégés immediately picked up the spade ...
No, actually we got the seeds back in March 2020.
Because of the lockdown, however, there were no more students in the schoolhouse.
That is why we postponed the campaign and only started it in spring this year.
How did you go about it?
We received red and yellow sachets with seeds.
Since this is a blind study, we do not know which seeds were really in space and which were not.
We also want to research independently.
Then we laid out four beds in the schoolyard - two each for the seeds from the red and yellow bags - and built a wicker fence around them so that nothing would break.
You can now see the plants sprouting.
And now sprouting in the schoolyard ...
We don't know exactly yet.
In any case, there is a large number of wild herbs and grasses included.
It's about the issues of biodiversity, biodiversity and environmental awareness, which are also close to Alexander Gerst's heart.
He explained that in a video message to the students.
From space he saw how fragile our earth is.
What results have your little researchers come to so far?
Many children suspect that the seeds from space grow worse because they were exposed to more radiation there.
At the end we will design a poster with our research results and send it to ESA.
An important contribution to future space missions?
Not all plants react in the same way to external conditions.
It is exciting to see which plants can stand it in space and which cannot.
If we want to live on Mars or on another planet one day, we have to know which plants would survive transport through space.
Otherwise we have nothing to eat.
As a teacher, what do you want to bring closer to the children with the campaign?
I want to get the children excited about scientific work, which is often neglected in primary schools.
You should learn how to set up theses and prove how to observe things in experiments and document results.
So that they can see that you don't have to be afraid of physics, chemistry or other natural sciences later on.
Is it fun for the kids?
Most of them are enthusiastic and lovingly take care of our plants.
Pupils from other classes also often stop in front of our flower beds in the school yard and see what has happened there.
