HUNTER students are looking forward to an out-of-this-world National Science Week 2021, when they start growing native golden wattle seeds that have flown in space.
The One Giant Leap Australia Foundation partnered with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to send the seeds in early December to the International Space Station for six months.
More than 150 schools - including Our Lady of Lourdes (OLOL) Primary at Tarro and St Joseph's Primary School Dungog - as well as scout groups and Australian Air Force cadets have been selected to participate in the "What'll happen with the wattle?" program.
They will receive seeds that have been flown to space and others that have not, all from the same seed lot.
The students will germinate and grow the seeds and record data on an app to determine the effect of space on these processes.
A map will be created with the locations of all the eventual trees.
Pastoral care worker at OLOL and St Joseph's, Karen Tucker, said she'd heard about the program after St Joseph's acting principal Lisa McNeilly applied to participate.
Ms Tucker and teacher Renae Unicomb suggested it to OLOL, thinking the wattle would complement the school's new bush tucker garden, circular meeting place and vegetable garden.
"It's a great experience for the students to be involved in and something to look forward to," she said.
"It's something different, to have a wattle tree in your school that's been to space. When they grow up and are driving past they can know that that's the tree they helped to germinate that went to space, they have that connection, which is important."
Ms Tucker said she was "stoked" the schools had been successful, especially given they are in regional locations.
"I don't think they ever thought they'd get it," she said. "I said 'We've just got to keep applying', never give up, basically. You've just to keep going and I'm so happy that we got it."
Ms Tucker said she understood tomatoes from seeds sent to space had grown more slowly than those from seeds that stayed on earth.
For faster access to the latest Newcastle news download our NEWCASTLE HERALD APP and sign up for breaking news, sport and what's on sent directly to your email.
