NASA Plant the Moon Challenge

Two of our Venture strands; AP Environmental Science and Life Science are participating in the NASA Plant the Moon Challenge.

NASA’s Artemis Program is the United States’ new initiative to return to the Moon. Artemis will explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. However, returning humans to the Moon is challenging in many ways. One of the challenges is providing food to the crews. Being able to grow food on the moon would open possibilities for greater exploration.

Participants in the Plant the Moon Challenge are joining a global science experiment and research challenge to examine how vegetable crops can grow in lunar soil. Students are designing and conducting a set of experiments using a lunar soil simulant to grow crops for a future long-duration mission.

During the 10 week growing period, students document their experiments with various types of additives to the soils, varying amounts of water and use of fertilizers. These results will be presented in a virtual symposium to NASA scientists and program executives and the best experiments will receive rewards.