Pupils in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), recently went beyond the common forms of known space research when they joined their peers from other countries to explore space plant science.

The experiment sponsored by YouthhubAfrica, in collaboration with the American Space Agency, Magnitude, launched the research known as Exo Lab Mission, which brings together Nigerian pupils and others for research, crop planting and monitoring from the International Space station.

In the experiment, students across the globe investigated the effects of microgravity on living things together, virtually.

The students from Government Secondary School (GSS) Garki, FCT, alongside other students worldwide are partaking in the pioneering research with the U.S. National Laboratory on the International Space Station (ISS), to monitor and grow red clover plants in the 1G environment of Earth as part of the ground control experiment and compare results to the flight experiment in the microgravity environment of the International Space Station.

One of the students partaking in the research, 15-year-old,  SS2 pupil of GSS Garki, Nwokedi Munachi explained, “The program was hosted by Exo Lab. They asked a question, how does gravity affect living things and throughout all the researches that we have been carrying out, we realized that gravity actually affects it because if you notice, the growth on soil is more larger than when it is affected by gravity.”

Source: The Nations newspaper