Today was an exciting day in Room 208! We planted Space Tomatoes! :)
How might someone plant a space tomato?
Here's our planting method:
As part of a 'blind test,' we planted two types of seeds - one from a control group and another from a group of seeds that went to space on SpaceX CRS-21 commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). (The seeds left Earth on December 6, 2020 and spent more than a month on the ISS. They were retuned to Earth on January 14, 2021 landing in a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.)
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| All the experiment supplies are ready to go! |
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| Writing our names - and our plant names! - on our sticks! |
We each planted 2 seeds - one from each seed group. The groups this year are "T" and "U" but we don't yet know which letter belongs to what seed group (hence the blind test). After planting our seeds, we placed our peat pots in mini-greenhouses (seedling trays with humidity covers), away from direct sunlight and cold-air drafts in order to provide ideal growing conditions.
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| Planting our tomato seeds! Grow friends, grow! |
We will make daily observations every day for the next 30 days. Our daily observations will include writing the date, the day of the experiment, the time of the observation, the temperature of the class and how many seeds from each group have germinated. It is expected that the seeds will start germinating between days 5 and 7, meaning we should start seeing tiny stems and leaves as early as Wednesday or Thursday!
As the experiment continues, we will discuss the need for collecting this type of data as it pertains to humans colonizing Mars. We will also be discussing the Scientific Method and learning how to: write detailed hypotheses, analyze and graph our collected data and represent our findings in well-written conclusions.
At the conclusion of the experiment, we will be submitting our results to Tomatosphere, and at that point we will discover the identities of the seed groups!
Participation in this month-long experiment will not only help Canadian scientists address the question of how we supply space exploration missions with life support requirements, it may also inspire us to pursue studies in Science and Technology as our space scientists and Mars explorers of the future.
Pretty cool, right? 🍅
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AGENDA
1. "Best Bike" permission forms were sent home today. Please sign and return the form as soon as possible (but no later than Thursday, October 13).
2. The École Ness clothing store is OPEN! Woohoo! All orders are done online and will be shipped to school (likely end of November). Store is open until Friday, October 14. Happy Shopping! :)
