• What was the mission or aim of your project?   

The aim of our project was to discover ways to sustainably and efficiently grow food on Mars. If we plan to travel to Mars, we are going to need food, and we can't just constantly import food to mars from earth.

• Why was this your mission?

We made this our mission because you need nutritious food to live a good life. We thought if we could find plants that you could eat on mars then we would have the food supply covered. Which is a crucial part of understanding how we can live on Mars in the future. We learned that Martian soil would be hard to grow plants in due to its lack of nutrients and texture; so we wanted to test it out and conduct our own experiment. We also decided to test out hydroponics as another option to grow food on mars. 

• How does your project fit or connect with the other projects in the class?  Are we living sustainably on your chosen planet. 

Our project is all about growing plants under different conditions, so with that in mind. Our project connects to our ecosystem unit and the project about pesticides.  Maybe there is a type of pesticide that can help plants grow in mars' harsh conditions. If we have greenhouses with heating, solar light setups, and a water supply, we would be able to live sustainably. Without them, the chances of living sustainably are low because there are only a very sparse amount of plants that have any chances of surviving in mars' super-cold climate.

• How successful was your action (it's OK if it didn't go as planned)?  Did you meet your goal?

Our action was successful as we came up with a result. We saw that hydroponics worked well for leafy plants, while radishes and tomatoes seem to work well in Martian soil. 

• What contributed to your group's success (or lack of success)?

I think the fact that we were a bigger group contributed to our group's success because we had to grow 7 plants and the work was able to be evenly distributed. Since there were more of us, we could all help and contribute which made the process more efficient. I think that something that contributed to the lack of success was that one of the weeks, we forgot to feed the hydroponic plants which led to one of them dying. That taught us the importance of keeping to a schedule when feeding plants. 

• What would you do differently if you could?

If we did the project again, we would observe the hydroponics much more closely since one of our plants died and we weren't sure why. I would also try to plant the seeds as early on as possible so we could gather more data over a longer period of time. 

• Pitch a next phase for your project.

The next phase of our project could be to build a small greenhouse to grow the plants in. The greenhouse would require a way to keep the temperature stable/heating, water supply, and sunlight. 

• Inspire a future group of students to pick up where you left off.

Future students could add to this project because it would be interesting to see how much further this experiment can go since we didn't have that much time to grow a larger variety of plants or build a full mini greenhouse.

• Why is this an important cause?  Why should they continue with it?

This is an important cause for the future because this project helped us understand if we could grow food on Mars (using Martian soil) or if Hydroponics would work. We figured out that both options worked but it depended on the vegetable we planted. Since scientists and others are exploring mars and discovering how we can have life on Mars, something that is very essential to living on Mars is having food. It is super important to be prepared and continue the research of what options are the best ways to grow certain vegetables. This is a challenging topic and it will take a lot more processing and researching, but it is great that we got started and compared the difference in vegetable growth using Martian soil VS Hydroponics.

• Where would you like to see it go next?

We would like to see edible plants come out of martian soil/hydroponics. We would also like to see more types of plants that we eat regularly being grown like cucumbers and carrots with the results of our research. 

• Each member of the group should reflect on what they learned.  You may have learned some neat stuff about science, but you also learned some other great skills like time management, goal setting, collaboration, and problem-solving.

Sonja: I learned many useful things while working on this project. I learned about growing plants in hydroponics and in replicated martian soil (which I didn't even know was a thing), I learned to be more communicative with my group members, I learned about the growth rate of certain plants and the importance of keeping to a strict schedule when feeding plants, I learned that martian soil is quite hard to work with because it doesn't absorb water like our soil does which makes it hard for the plants to grow. I also learned how to plan out and organise everything that needed to  be done in order for the project to be a success. Overall, this project was very educational.  

Moonzia: I got to develop heaps of skills throughout the time we spent working on this project; but some of the key ones include time management, goal-setting, collaboration, and responsibility. I got to work on my time management skills by breaking our work periods into parts and figuring out what parts I'd spend writing, brainstorming, and physically working with the plants. I often go through this cycle of procrastinating,  then overworking myself. Through goal-setting for this project, I was able to better work through those bad habits and use my time efficiently. Collaboration was also a big thing, we got to work on contributing our own ideas as well as hearing everyone else out. Another skill I got to develop was responsibility and holding myself accountable to get certain parts of the project done. 

Kristin: I've learned a lot of new things during the experiment, not only about martian soil and hydroponics but also about group work and working with a team, I usually like to work independently so I have full control over everything and also because I don't like having to explain things to people but this group has taught me how important group work is at times. Other things I've learned are much more about Mars' habitat that I didn't know before which I never would've guessed about and also about hydroponics because I honestly didn't know plants, except swamp and ocean plants, could grow in water, without soil which honestly surprised me because at first, I thought that people were really stupid to try to live on Mars, especially when this Earth is already dying but now I think that it is possible but I would personally never live on Mars though. Overall this project taught me more than I intended to learn.

Callie: I learned so many great things from Space Camp. One of the most important things i've learned from this project is working all together as a group/team. We set goals and planned out what we wanted to accomplish next. I also learned that when you are a part of a group you come up with really great ideas and on top of that we also solve problems together better. We figured out how to organize all of our work and plants. For example, we kept our ideas and our work in a doc, we also labelled our plants and hydroponics and we kept track of the amount of seeds we planted as well as when we should water and feed them. I learned a lot about planting, coming into this project I had never heard about hydroponics or martian soil!! After researching and discussing with my group we decided to use those two options and compare the growth of the vegetables we planted. Later on, we learned that it just depends on the vegetable you plant whether they grow in the hydroponics or in the martian soil more effectively. In conclusion, I learned so much and I am really happy I got to work on this project. 

Silin: I have learned about goal setting. I have good time management so I always have time to get every time done, but sometimes when there is a lot to do, I get overwhelmed. With goal setting, I can pick out the parts that I want to get done and when which helps me stay on track without feeling like there is too much to do. Of course, I didn't just do this alone, we all set our goals together and worked together. I also learned a lot about hydroponics, I'd never even heard about them until space camp. Hydroponics is the act of growing plants without using soil, and soil is important as it provides plants with nutrients. I also learned about martian soil, the texture of it is a lot like sand and it hardens at the top when you drop water on it. I also developed my resilience so even when one of our experiments failed I would be able to bounce back. For example, when our tomatoes in martian soil did not grow, I still watered them and was able to get data to do an analysis, and eventually, 1 sprouted. I am glad we did this project, as it will help me grow my knowledge and grow as a person. I also really enjoyed that we got to plant vegetables because I enjoy gardening. 

Rachel: Throughout my time in space camp I have learned many things. I learned that it is important to set goals that aren't just what I am doing because we all need to collaborate to work on our goals together to finish. I also learned time management which is very important for finishing our goals and making sure we never fall behind, which we never did. Whenever there was a problem we had great problem-solving skills, for example, we were not sure what to do for explaining our design We combined all of our ideas and then made sure with the teacher that our idea was on the right track. I also learned about hydroponics which I didn't even know was a thing before this project. Hydroponics is another way to grow plants with providing them with nutrients, and energy from the sun and water. Lastly, I learned about Martian's soil and was initially shocked that we had it on earth. I noticed that Martian soil is a lot drier and acts like sand when you put water on it. Overall I learned many things and really glad we did this project.