Grade 3 class tracks growth of space tomatoes

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A group of students from Otetiskewin Kiskinwa-mahtowekamik school in Nelson House were part of a school project that was literally out of this world.

Last year's Grade 3 class was one of more than 3,000 to take part in the Tomatosphere project, growing tomato plants from seeds that had gone into space.

The seeds were part of space shuttle mission STS-97, which launched from the Kennedy Space Centre on Nov. 30, 2000, and returned to earth Dec. 11. Canadian Marc Garneau was part of the five-astronaut crew aboard the Endeavor for the 11-day mission, which saw the shuttle dock with the International Space Station to deliver and install the station's first set of solar arrays.

While on the shuttle, the space seeds traveled 7,230,687 kilometres, and circled the earth 170 times.

David Duke teaches Grade 3 at Otetiskewin Kiskinwa-mahtowekamik school. He said his class of about 20 students got involved in the Tomatosphere project when the school's Grade 1 teacher found out about the project on the Internet.

The students received 100 tomato seeds in total: 25 space seed that had been treated with ultraviolet light; 25 space seeds that hadn't been treated; 25 earth seeds that had been treated with ultraviolet light; and 25 untreated earth seeds.

The students planted their seeds on April 16, and then watched and waited.

"What we had to do is we had to plant all of the seeds, and then document when they germinated, and then measure their growth every week for three weeks," Duke said.

"And then, over the Internet, we just reported our findings. They wanted to know the average germination period of each type of seed, how long it took. And how many actually germinated. And the average growth rate over the three weeks.

"The results were kind of interesting . . . the space seeds actually did better than the regular seeds. More of them germinated, and they grew taller. So they did a lot better," Duke said.

"I don't know how they tasted or anything like that, but they did real well as compared to the earth seeds."

Once the official part of the project was over, Duke gave the tomato plants away to the students, teachers and friends. No one was hesitant about taking a plant grown from the space seeds, Duke said. "Actually, those are the ones they wanted."

The students involved in the Tomatosphere project were very enthusiastic about it, he said. "They really enjoyed it."

It even got a couple of kids thinking about a career in science, he said.

"Kids really like space as it is. They really were interested in it. Plants as a whole, growing plants, isn't an overly exciting thing. But when you involve tomatoes that have been out in space, they were really interested in it. They showed lots of interest. And they really wanted to take them home, which was good. And some of them are still saying their plants are growing. And they had some tomatoes from them," he said.

"Part of Grade 3 science is plants. So at the very least, they learned about how plants come from the seed and how they germinate and they grow, and then how other plants come from that-from the seeds of the tomatoes. So I think at the very least, they learned about the life cycle of a plant, in a more interesting way.

"If you just brought regular seeds, they'd still learn it, but they probably wouldn't be as enthusiastic about it. Because they sent us a whole thing, with posters, and we kept track. And knowing that this information is going to be used, they took a lot of time and care when they were measuring. And I think, with having it part of a national project, they did put a lot more time and effort into their work."

For more information about Tomatosphere, check out the Web at http://www.tomatosphere.org.