STUDENTS at Trinity College’s Gawler River School will be involved in an exciting science experiment that will see them germinate seeds from space.

The project is a collaboration between the One Giant Leap Australia Foundation and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and will involve about 150 Australian schools, scout groups and Australian Air Force Cadets.

Gawler River was chosen by a community judging panel, based on their student-led video application, and is expected to receive wattle space seeds in time for Science Week, in August next year.

Trinity College STEM co-ordinator Samantha Wyatt said as many students as possible will be involved in the project, which involves growing seeds that have been into space, as well as seeds that have not, and recording observations.

“The seeds will go up on the third of December and then they will spend six months in the International Space Station and then they will come back down to Australia and then ultimately the seeds are getting shared across arrange of schools in Australia,” she said.

“Over the next year to two years we will germinate the seeds and grow the seeds and allow the kids to collect data and compare that to seeds that didn’t go up into space.

“We want to try and involve our whole school at different periods… so whether for the younger kids it’s just looking at the seeds and understanding these were from space and kids a bit older might monitor the germination and be in charge of taking photos.

“We will try to encourage as many students as we can and not only at Gawler River but at other Trinity sites if we can also.”

Throughout the program, One Giant Leap Australia Foundation will run teleconferences and provide educational support to participating groups.

Data will be uploaded to the ‘What’ll happen to the wattle??!’ app, with the project resulting in the creation of a nationwide map identifying the location of Australia‘s 'space wattle’ trees.

Ms Wyatt said a total of 18 Gawler River School students, from year levels five to 10 were involved in the application process, which had them produce a video discussing why they would like to be involved.

The video spoke of using coding and robotics to help students design and build a monitoring system for moisture, pH, and light, so as to ensure the seedlings are grown in the right conditions.

“They took charged of it; they brainstormed where they wanted to film, what they wanted to say and then we just co-ordinated the time to make sure they had the time to film it,” she said.

“With our International Space Agency being in Adelaide I think it’s so important to have our kids engaged in the space industry and understanding the opportunities they might have.

“And I think just growing their curiosity and then also starting to explore the potential of having life in space or on other planets, I think it’s really exciting.”

The wattle seeds were delivered and presented to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, by the Australian Ambassador to Japan, Richard Court, in August.