PUPILS from an Evesham school will embark on a voyage of discovery by growing rocket seed that blasted off into space alongside British Astronaut Tim Peake.
Students at the Vale of Evesham School are now preparing to become space biologists after their school was one of out of 10,000 to be selected to receive a packet of 100 seeds which have been in orbit around the Earth.
The seeds have been sent as part of the Rocket Science project launched by the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and the UK Space Agency.
In September, 2kg of rocket seeds was flown to the International Space Station on Soyuz 44S where they have spent several months in micro-gravity before returning to Earth this month.
Over seven weeks the pupils will grow the space seeds alongside seeds that remained on the planet and measure the differences between the two.
The budding space biologists won’t know which seed packet contains which seeds until all the results have been collected and analysed by professional bio-statisticians.
Jenny Westmacott, a science teacher at the Vale of Evesham School, said: “This experiment is a fantastic way of teaching our pupils to think more scientifically and share their findings with the whole school.”
