During every presentation our presenters are asked that question, Do you want to go to Mars? Do you think we can grow chickens in Mars?
The students wait hanging on to every second for the answer. They are always amazed at the different answers they hear and the reasons why. The answers often lead to more questions then answers or a "how dare they say we can not grow chickens on Mars!" These students are passionate about their plants and chickens.
With that October came and the weather changed. In a cold frame that meant the dropping temperatures were too much for their project plants to bare. One day they watered their plants and the next after a hard frost there was sadness of the passing on their plant. These will be the hurdles on Mars, so how can we come them? Mars will not have a feed store to buy more I told them. So, we turned to thinking about growing plants with grow lights and hydroponics inside (where it is warmer).
Uwharrie Ridge 6-12 started in October raising plants in partnership with the Grow Beyond Earth program with Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens.
Students were tasked with growing 4 different types of lettuces in a lab setting. They collected data over 28 days to examine the amount of biomass the plants could produce for people in space. Their data was sent to NASA for NASA to consider for their own research possibilities!
This winter high school students will create their own experiment with the plants and soil substrate. Their final product will be a scientific poster shared with NASA and the scientific community.