Gardening isn’t rocket science – or is it?

PUPILS at Sir William Romney’s School in Tetbury have planted Rocket seeds as part of an experiment with astronaut Tim Peake.

SWR is taking part in a nationwide research project to see how gravity affects the seeds, and to encourage children to get more involved in science.

In September last year, 2kg of Rocket seeds were flown to the International Space Station on Soyuz 44S where they spent several months in microgravity before returning to Earth last month.

Using a booklet containing scientific experiment guidelines, SWR horticultural students will grow 100 seeds that have spent six months on board the Space Station with British European Space Agency astronaut Tim Peake and 100 seeds that have remained on Earth.

They will take a number of specific measurements during a 35-day growing period and record these on a wall chart.

“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,” says SWR’s teacher of horticulture James Courtice.

The UK Space Agency says it hopes the science experiment will enable young people to think more about what astronauts need to survive long-term missions in space and the difficulties surrounding growing fresh food in challenging climates.