Glenrothes pupils' link with British astronaut is out of this world

P7 pupils with the seeds from the space station. Pic by FPA.

Pupils at Pitteuchar West Primary have ‘landed’ the ‘out of this world’ opportunity to grow and monitor the progress of a batch of salad seeds that were specially prepared by spacemen on the International Space Station (ISS).

In September, two kilogrammes of rocket seeds were flown to the ISS on Soyuz 44S where they have spent several months in microgravity before returning to Earth in March 2016.

And now the youngsters have been sent the seeds by Britain’s first European Space Agency astronaut Tim Peake, who is currently living and working on the space station which orbits 240 miles above the earth.

It’s all part of the Rocket Science initiative, an educational project launched by the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and the UK Space Agency.

Julie Anderson deputy head teacher, who heard a request for schools to come forward on the radio, said the pupils are very excited to be taking part in the unique experiment.

“It’s a fantastic way of teaching our pupils to think more scientifically and share their findings with the whole school,” she added.

The Rocket Science project is just one from a programme developed by the UK Space Agency to celebrate Tim’s principal mission and inspire young people to take an interest in science subjects.