MAY 31 2006
Gazette Article May 25 2006 -
Space Seeds
Harbor Surprises
.........
7th
Graders in the NASA Explorer School at Central Park Middle
School will met via video-conference with NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center`s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, on
Thursday, May 25 at 2:00pm to present their findings of the
second phase of their Cosmic Veggies experiment.
The students in
Mrs. Fretto’s 7th grade class gathered in the
library to present phase two of their Cosmic Veggies
experiment, germination. The pumpkin and vegetable seeds were
launched into space on the International Space Station and
remained in there for eight months. They were returned to
Central Park Middle School in August 2005. Ever since, the
students have been observing and reporting the effects of
microgravity on the seeds to determine if there is a measurable
difference in appearance and growth rates.
In the first
phase of the experiment, the class observed and compared pumpkin
and sunflower seeds and determined that there were observable
differences in the shape of the cells and size of the nucleus of
the cells.
They concluded
the differences were the result of the effects of liftoff and
landing and hypothesized that plants grown from experiment seeds
would have observable differences.
Now in to the
second phase of the experiment, students are studying the
germination of the seeds. With the help of Dr. Newkirk, chief of
pathology at St. Peters Hospital, the students have set up a
germinated control group and experimental group. They have
gathered data consisting of germination rates and appearance and
have formed a hypothesis and conclusion based on their
observation. Newkirk helped the students make slides and study
the data. Thursday the 7th graders will report their
findings to Wallops Flight Facility and talked about their data,
hypothesis and more.
NASA Goddard
Space Flight Center`s Wallops Flight Facility, located on
Virginia`s Eastern Shore, serves as a center for aeronautic
research.
This
partnership and project with NASA is one of the many exciting
opportunities offered to Central Park’s NASA Explorer School,
the first one named in New York State. Astronauts and
scientists from all over the country have visited Central Park
Middle School and teachers have attended workshop in
aeronautics, rocketry and robotics at the Johnson Space Center
in Houston and at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
MAY 31 2006
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