Everglades Preparatory Academy students are participating in Growing Beyond Earth with Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
The Growing Beyond Earth Challenge is an environmental science competition designed to expand food options and increase plant diversity for spaceflight by evaluating multiple edible plants that meet NASA’s criteria for size and edibility. Using equipment that mimics the environmental conditions aboard the International Space Station, the AP Science students in Ms. Comptons’s class will test factors that may influence plant growth, flavor, and nutrition.
Their goal is to determine which edible plants might be suitable for growth in microgravity aboard the International Space Station’s plant growth facility. The date collected by students will be used by NASA scientists to decide what plants will be grown on the International Space Station. Some of the plants that these students submitted to NASA last year were grown on the space station and havested by astronauts. We can’t wait for this year’s list of plants and veggies.
Everglades Preparatory Academy, part of the Charter School Associates family of schools, is located in Homestead, Florida. The 6-12 Tuition-Free Public Charter School offers Legal Studies, Environmental, and Marine Biology, as well as Business and Finance with options to add strands and career industry certifications to student portfolio..