Iowa Space Grant Sponsors Plant the Moon Challenge Team Winning 4-H Youth Win National Award
AMES, Iowa – A Clinton County elementary school student team was selected as Best in Show for Crop Growth in the 2023-24 Plant the Moon Challenge. Their project and report were featured in the online closing symposium seen by groups around the world.
The Plant the Moon Challenge is a global science experiment, learning activity and inspirational, project based learning challenge to see who can grow the best crops using lunar or Martian regolith simulants. The Institute of Competition Sciences runs the program in collaboration with NASA and other science advisors as part of the Artemis mission. Educators are now invited to register teams for this learning opportunity for the 2024-25 year.
Radishes and lettuce for the win
In the 2023-24 challenge, Clinton County’s Smithtown Academy Bees from Lost Nation submitted “How do different fertilizers combined with soil and moon regolith affect lettuce and radish growth?” for review by NASA scientists. The team of two, Johann, fourth grade, and Henry, fifth grade, studied the effect of different soil supplements on the growth of lettuce and radishes planted in 50/50 soil and lunar simulant mixtures. The participants chose lettuce and radish plants because they wanted one plant growing above the soil and one below the soil. They evaluated bone meal, blood meal and liquid kelp because they have different nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium levels.
“I really appreciated [their] great care in the germination of [their] plants by covering the pots with plastic to retain moisture,” said Melanie Mormile, scientist advisory board member and associate dean of research at Missouri University of Science and Technology. She said the team did a great job with the “careful thinning of the plants so that the remaining plants that they actually were going to run their tests on did not get stressed from being overcrowded.”
After a 10-week growing period, they found their hypothesis of the soil and moon regolith supplemented with bone meal as the best for growing radishes due to the higher phosphorus helping with root growth incorrect. They also hypothesized that the blood meal-supplemented pots would be best for lettuce because they had the most nitrogen, which is good for leaf growth; this hypothesis was correct.
Read the full article on MorningAgClips.com
Image Credit: Jessica Ihns
Author Credit: Morning Ag Clips
Original Post Date: Oct. 27, 2024