Tomatosphere™ uses the excitement of space exploration to teach the scientific method. You will study the effects of the space environment on the growth of food that will one day support long-term human space travel.
Your class has two packages of seeds labeled “A” and “B”, and each contains about 33 seeds.
One package of seeds is a “control” (untreated) group and the other is the "treatment" group, which was subjected to a simulated space environment of -80°C in a vacuum just like space. The simulation is close to like what might happen to the seeds if there was a hole in the storage system on a spacecraft with astronauts going to Mars! Will they still grow?!
We will be planting the seeds and waiting to see how many grow (germinate). Will more grow from group A or from group B?
Why are we doing this?To have enough food for survival on Mars one day, astronauts will need to grow some of their own food. The tomato is one of the candidate crops for a “farm on Mars.”
Through photosynthesis, plants use light and the carbon dioxide exhaled by humans and give off oxygen to the air that is needed for survival. Plus we get to eat them. Yum!
Click HERE to find out about how the seeds were treated and the story behind their space journey!
Canadian Space Agency astronaut, Jeremy Hansen, is no stranger to our classroom. Last year we Skyped with him on Earth Day. Earlier this year he performed one of our experiments aboard Aquarius, an undersea laboratory and we had some interesting results. Needless to say I am a huge fan. I found his first Ted Talk on YouTube very inspiring and hopefully you will too.
"I urge each of you to think big, dream bigger and explore without limits. Because my fellow explorers you each have value and you are unlimited." - Lieutenant-Colonel Jeremy Hansen
We have had quite a unique experience to follow this week. One of Canada's very own astronauts, Jeremy Hansen, has let us tag along on his adventures in training for a future mission in space. I have had a lot of kids turned on to science and wanting to be astronauts when they grow up. Amazing!!
NEEMO 19 team getting ready for their last day aboard Aquarius
Jeremy has been spending a week as a member of NEEMO. "NEEMO is a NASA mission that sends groups of astronauts, engineers and scientists to live in Aquarius, the world's only undersea research station, for up to three weeks at a time. The Aquarius habitat and its surroundings provide a convincing analog for space exploration" - NASA
"Back alive with all body parts! Night dive as cool as expected. Luminescence, feeding frenzy, squid..." - JH
Before he spent his week under the sea he put a shout out for simple experiments to do, both at sea level and 19 meters below the surface of the ocean near Key Largo, Florida. See more about it and the lab we challenged him to try HERE.
He accepted our challenge and gave it a try on the surface before going into the deep. See all about it HERE.
The results were not at all the same as they were here in Edmonton. This prompted great discussion about the scientific method and variables that may have altered the experiment. I always tell kids that science is a process and most of the time your results are inconclusive but lead to refining the experiment and coming up with an even better plan.
Yesterday he gave our experiment a go while aboard Aquarius with almost three times the atmospheric pressure pushing down on them!! Here is what he discovered.
The scientific process at work! So now we have to come up with an even better experiment with more controlled variables and see if we can do it ourselves here in Beaumont. I sent this blog post out into the Twitterverse and broke the internet. Seriously my phone went CRAZY with notifications.
Awesome work @AmandaGMerriman ! Just had time 2 read this.Great work taking inconclusive science & turning into great lesson.Wonderful!
— Jeremy R. Hansen (@Astro_Jeremy) September 14, 2014
Thank you again @Astro_Jeremy. Life is full of these teachable moments & this entire process has really brought our lessons to life!
— Alberta Sci Teacher (@AmandaGMerriman) September 14, 2014
Here are a few more pictures Jeremy took while out exploring the ocean. So cool.
"This wave of small blue Creole Wrasses surrounded us causing a feeding frenzy of Groupers and Barracuda." - JH
"Oh baby! Night dive time. A taste of what's in store just swam by. What you can't see won't hurt you right..." - JH (Anyone else hear Heart singing "Barracuda" while reading this??)
Now this is just for fun. William Shatner and Chris Hadfield became Twitter friends while Hadfield was aboard the ISS last year. Jeremy Hansen was trained and gave ground support for Hadfield and his mission. So from science fiction to science fact, this is just funny ...
@AmandaGMerriman@ReefBase good ? Debriefs, cleaning, slept, packing, sharing stories & a bunch of laughing. Time 4 reflection as well.
— Jeremy R. Hansen (@Astro_Jeremy) September 14, 2014
My science classes have had some pretty amazing opportunities over the past two years. One of the highlights of last year was Skyping with Major Jeremy Hansen on Earth Day. (See more HERE).
With a new start to the school year my students have been diving into learning about the scientific method. We have been learning about Jeremy Hansen's training in preparation for an amazing adventure under the sea with NEEMO (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations).
Jeremy put a call out to people to come up with some experiments he can do "under pressure".
@Astro_Jeremy@csa_asc My class has come up with a few good ideas! We will be sending you them ASAP! Do you have gummy bears under the sea?
Last year we did an experiment using gummy bears to demonstrate osmosis. Please click HERE for more details about the experiment and osmosis.)
My students wanted to take it one step further and find out if the rate of osmosis is different when the experiment is performed under the sea, at sea-level, and maybe one day even up aboard the ISS. So here is the experiment. We measured the length of a gummy bear and then placed it in a baggy of water. I normally do this in a petri-dish or bowl but we were thinking that if this experiment to be run with as little equipment as possible. We measured the bear every half an hour for a three hour period. If I were to do this again I would perhaps measure once an hour for half of a day. We decided to only do the experiment with tap water instead of both tap water and salt water because it would make it more complicated to do aboard Aquarius, although the results would be interesting. Finally we would compare the growth/size of our observations here on dry land and on Aquarius after the same amount of time.
After 2 hours
After 3 hours
Our hypothesis is that the rate of osmosis will be greater (faster) aboard Aquarius due to the difference in pressure (despite it being regulated for those aboard). If it were to be done, hypothetically, on the ISS we would hypothesis that the rate would be slower due micro-gravity and the lack of pressure (despite it being regulated for those aboard).
The applications of these observations are important as we use these concepts when we look at agriculture, water purification, and the needs to the human body. These are all vital to learning how to expand our reach into the universe. Read more about:
Last week we were able to learn all about Ross Lockwood who is a physicist from the University of Alberta and is part of a Mars simulation. See more about it HERE. He replied to all of the kids questions so eloquently. Awesome
Hello to all the students in Mrs. Spreen and Mrs. Merriman’s grade 4 and 7 classes at ECES! I’m so happy to receive your questions, and I’m grateful that you took the time to think up questions for my experience in the HI-SEAS Mars simulation! Let’s get started!
1. If you are to actually go to Mars, would you be nervous? Yes, of course! Feeling nervous is a common emotion when you are aware of the possibility of something going wrong. It’s a healthy emotion that tells us to pay attention to our surroundings so that we don’t miss something that could hurt us. What would I be nervous about on Mars? Well, lots of things! On Mars, the atmosphere is very thin compared to Earth, and there is too little oxygen for humans to survive. We will have to bring sealed spaceships to Mars that keep their own atmosphere, one little leak might cause all the air to escape if it wasn’t caught quickly! There are many potential dangers for travel to Mars, so it would be quite natural for someone going there to feel nervous!
2. Why are Mars rocks reddish brown? The rocks on Mars (and where I am on Mauna Loa) are rich in the element Iron (Fe). When Iron comes into contact with Oxygen (the important part of the air we breath) it forms a compound known as Iron Oxide. You may know that iron is fairly common in your daily life, and you’ll be able to identify Iron Oxide as something common… Rust! Yes, Mars is red because the iron in the soil was in contact with oxygen long ago, and most of the surface now is rich in minerals that contain Iron Oxide. Here’s a picture I took not long ago illustrating the colours:
Here’s something that you might enjoy, Iron oxide is also responsible for the colour of blood. Hemoglobin is a protein that carries oxygen in your blood, and the iron in it is responsible for the red coloration. Your blood is red for the same reason Mars is red!
3. What would happen if you ran out of food, oxygen, or water on Mars? Well, a trip to Mars would need to bring along a lot of food, and typically you’d pack enough for your entire stay, that goes the same for oxygen and water too. BUT what if something bad happened that depleted one of those resources? Well, Martian astronauts would need to get very creative, very quickly. Water, as you probably already know, is a molecule of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. So if we ran out of oxygen, we’d just need to separate the two components of water (a process called electrolysis works well to do this). What if we ran out of water instead? Well, if we had the time, we could travel to the Martian polar ice caps, and harvest ice there, or even drill down into the Martian soil and hope to find it there. But, we could also look carefully at our rocket fuel… which is made up of oxygen and hydrogen! By carefully burning the rocket fuel, we’d be able to make water! Food is much more difficult to answer… Could we survive long enough without food to make to home? Maybe. Could we grow our own food in a greenhouse? Yes! But that takes a lot of time and planning. Hopefully something future Martians will think about a lot!
Here’s a picture of the plants we are growing at HI-SEAS:
4. What qualified you to be part of Hi-Seas? Well, for a start, I am a physicist. That means that I worked hard and did well in science and math. Second, I’m a friendly guy, which means that I get along well with others, this is important if I’m going to spend 4 months with 5 people in the same space as your classroom! Third, I like to learn all the time and solve problems. You probably hear your teachers talking about this all the time, but it’s true! If you are inspired by a particular problem, do a science project on it, ask questions to a local scientist, look up the answers on the internet! Do whatever you can to feed your curiosity, and you’ll build a strong foundation to reach for your dreams!
5. What do the other people on this mission do? This would be a long answer if I went into detail, so I’ll try to keep it short. Casey, our commander, is mostly interested in the geology (the rocks and volcanoes) nearby, so he spends a lot of time and effort learning about the formation of the volcanic regions in Hawaii and in the Tharsis region on Mars. Lucie is in charge of the plant studies, and she’s grown several crops of lettuce, tomatoes, and peas from the soil around the habitat. Annie is a chemical engineer that is interested in recycling waste on future space missions, so she carefully monitors how much garbage we make and recycles what we can to reduce our impact on the environment. Tiffany is responsible for the spacewalks, so she maintains and repairs the suits so that we can go outside to collect samples for our research. I’m working on a 3D printed tools project where we test surgical instruments that were made with plastic in a 3D printer!
Other than that, we all share the work doing chores and making meals for each other. Chores include laundry, cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming, everything you do at home.
6. Do you have a way to get extra water if you are out? We can get a little bit of water from the rain here on Mauna Loa, but it doesn’t rain often, so if we ran out of water, we’d be in big trouble. For the HI-SEAS mission, there is a water deliver truck that comes up the mountain to refill our water tanks every 20 days or so. We carefully monitor how much water we have left so that we know when to call them. Here is a chart of our water over the last 21 days!
7. How would you build everything from the habitat on Mars?You would bring most of the materials with you. Our dome would probably be made out of an inflatable material, plastic or a synthetic material. The rectangular block that houses our workshop would probably be part of the rocket that brought us down to the surface. Everything is recycled and nothing is wasted. Here’s a picture of me in front of the habitat.
8. What is the most common thing you cook? Well, we haven’t made the same thing twice! But we have lots of dehydrated fruits, vegetables and meats, so we are mostly working through our stores of those things. Soups are by far the easiest thing for us to make, because everything needs water to be added to it to rehydrate it anyway. We have a few treats while we are in here, like a couple of bags of chips and a couple of those small Halloween chocolate bars, but they have to last us the entire 4 months!
9. Do you believe in aliens? Another difficult question! I believe that aliens exist, but I have never seen any compelling evidence that they have visited our solar system! As you probably know, scientists have found lots of planets orbiting stars throughout our galaxy, but so far, they haven’t been able to tell whether or not those planets harbour life, much less whether there is intelligent life out there! I believe that we will discover life outside of the solar system within 10 years, but I don’t think it will be the kind of aliens that we see on TV or in the movies, unfortunately.
10. What is the biodome made of? Our dome is made out of a geodesic frame of stainless steel, with two layers of plastic. The outer layer is a waterproof plastic, like a tarp, that repels water and wind, and the inner covering is made of a soft material that insulates the dome, kind of like a multilayered blanket. The dome is very strong, because of it’s shape. You may have seen smaller versions of these spherical “cages” at playgrounds, although most modern schools don’t have them anymore because they are pretty dangerous! 11. Do you think it rains on Jupiter? Oh absolutely! I rains on almost every planet! Even Mars! It’s WHAT is raining that’s interesting! Did you know that on Saturn’s moon Titan, it rains a molecule called Methane!! In fact, Titan has lakes and rivers and oceans of methane, just like Earth has lakes and rivers and oceans of water. Now here comes the most interesting part, methane is a component of flatulence… You heard that right, on Titan it rains FARTS! (Hahaha, sorry Theresa and Amanda, cut those last two sentences out if you think it’s over a line).
12. Have you ever had to scrub bird poop off the solar panels? Nope! There are no birds up here! We are at an elevation of 2,500 meters above sea level! Almost nothing grows up here, so there is no food for birds. I haven’t seen a bird since the day we left Hilo to go to the habitat! There is the occasional butterfly or spider that I see, but they are so rare it’s a marvel when we see them. Even humans have a hard time surviving at this elevation. There is a condition called Mountain Sickness (Monge’s disease) that makes humans feel tired and confused if they aren’t able to adapt to high altitudes (sometimes I feel tired and confused here)!
13. What happens if you have a fire? We’d grab the nearest fire extinguisher and put it out!!!! Then we’d call 911, and wait an hour and a half for help to arrive! But there is very little that can light a fire up here, in fact, we don’t have matches or lighters or anything, just like real spaceships. If we really really needed to make a fire (for heat, let’s say) we’d have a hard time making it!
14. How do you get more food if you run out? We grow it! Lucie has a bunch of plants that we could eat if we ran out of food, but we planned well in advance and we have lots of food left for the last month of the mission.
15. What material is the space suit made out of? There are two types of suits that we have here, hazmat suits, which are just made out of heavy plastic, and our spacesuit analogs, the MX-C’s, which have a whole bunch of features. They have an inner lining of soft fabric, then a shell with a backpack for all the suit’s electronics and water cooling. Then an outer layer of white fabric which is more durable to protect us when we fall. Real spacesuits would be made from very expensive synthetic materials and have all sorts of sensors to alert the occupant to danger.
Here’s a picture of me in the suit, and Annie and Lucie on a spacewalk.
16. What do you do for fun? We have lots of options for having fun! First, we can plan a fun spacewalk and go exploring! We even go out at night in spacesuits and take pictures of the stars (how would Mars’ sky differ from Earth’s?). If we want to stay inside, we have boardgames to play with each other, and a projector where we can watch movies and TV shows that we brought along with us. We also have our computers, and one of my favourite things to do is play a few minutes of Minecraft now and then!
17. How could you get air on the space station? You need to bring it with you! Lots of the things that are sent up to the space station are just tanks of gas for the astronauts to breath! Unfortunately, we don’t yet have the technology to grab an asteroid and extract gases from it (many of them have water, hint hint) but that’s a problem that we are working on, and that future scientists like yourselves may find a solution for!
18. Does the bathroom smell because of the compost? Most of the time, no. The bathroom doesn’t smell at all usually. But… Every two days the composting drum needs to be rotated (we used to rotate it every time we used it, but now only once every two days), and when it gets rotated the stench is HORRIBLE. For about two minutes. The fans in the bathroom draw the smells outside right away. I rotate the drum after everyone has gone to bed, and I close the bathroom door behind me so that I don’t have to smell it.
19. Is it hard to get your space suit on? Yes, it is very difficult. It always takes two people to get a suit on, and sometimes it takes three. That’s because the backpack of the suit is so heavy, someone needs to be there to help lift it while you get into the suit. Other than that, operating the suit is pretty easy, and you can easily go two hours before you need to take it off.
20. Why do you have a Hazmat suit to use when you go on an EVA?Very good question! The first reason is that there are only two of the white MX-C’s, and there are 4 of us that go out sometimes, so we need the hazmats for the other two. The second reason is by far the most important… Remember that we need help getting into the suits? Well, we also need help getting out of them. So we take the worst case scenario and practice it. What would happen if an MX-C suit caught on fire??? Someone would need to be there to help the person get out. It’s very easy to get out of the hazmat suits, but very hard to get out of the MX-Cs, so we always send a hazmat helper along in case the worst scenario happens. So far we haven’t had any trouble.
I enjoyed answering all your questions, and I wish you a very exciting summer! Make sure to think about some of the things you asked and what you’d do differently if you were travelling to Mars! It might be fun one night to set up a tent and pretend that you are on a Mars mission too! Pack all your food and water, and imagine what it would be like to live on another planet! —Ross Lockwood
We have a unique opportunity to learn about one of the brave and fortunate people to be included in a study of what it could be like to live on Mars. Ross Lockwood is currently living in sMars (or simulated Mars) on an isolated part of one of the islands of Hawaii. It is a program through the university of Hawi'i called the Hawai‘i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS).
Here is what we were told about him: Ross is a student at the University of Alberta studying Condensed Matter Physics, specifically silicon quantum dots (what computer chips among much more are made of). He was chosen as one of 6 members from an international pool of applicants for this mission. One of his responsibilities is to investigate the feasibility of 3D printed tools on future space missions to lessen cargo.
We are unable to Skype with him but can email him our questions. Here is the reason why "They operate all communications on a 40 minute delay to mirror the actual speed of light delay experienced in space flight."
The Canadian Press - see here for full story "A Kelowna scientist doing his PhD at the University of Alberta is joining the crew of a NASA-funded simulated mission to Mars after beating out hundreds of applicants from around the world. Ross Lockwood and five others will spend four months inside a sealed environment high on the slopes of a Hawaiian mountain. The main purpose of the mission, starting March 28, is to help the space agency develop psychological guidelines that will be used to select future astronauts capable of making a real trip to Mars."
"During the upcoming study, researchers from outside of the HI-SEAS habitat will monitor the six crew members isolated inside the solar-powered dome at a remote site at 8,000 feet elevation on the slopes of Mauna Loa. The researchers will evaluate the crew’s communications strategies, crew workload and job-sharing, and conflict resolution/conflict management approaches to determine the most important factors for the success of a long-duration space mission."
Best. Day. Ever. Here is the back story ... Last year I made it
my goal to meet Chris Hadfield and have him come and
talk to my school. I am a self-proclaimed space geek and love all things Hadfield. With his new celebrity and best-seller book he is even
more popular than ever so, even though I did get to briefly meet him, I
have to set the second part of this goal aside. For now.
I have made a new goal. Connect with a current Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, Skype, perhaps one day have a school visit, and eventually to be there to interact and support when the day comes for his own time in space. So now I have achieved two of the four so far and am excited to see what the future may bring.
Last November I attended the ATA Science council conference and
was delighted to find out that Canadian astronaut, Jeremy Hansen, would be a keynote speaker. I read all I could and discovered so much about Hansen, Hadfield, and the CSA. Through Twitter I interacted
with Magalie Renaud from the Canadian Space Agency and was able to meet
her and Jeremy face-to-face. It was wonderful to ask him so many
questions and pick Magalie's brain about what was out there for educators in
regards to our Canadian Space Program. She asked me if I had applied to
have an astronaut speak to my class and, of course, I had.
A few months later I received an email from her letting me
know that Jeremy was able to Skype with my class!
This past
week and a half was busy getting the students and their questions ready and
even doing a practice Skype with NASA. We had heard that
there was a possibility that the event would have to be rescheduled
because the astronauts currently aboard the International Space
Station were planning a space walk to repaira computer, and that our own Jeremy
Hansen would be the Ground Intravehicular Officer. It was explained to me that it would be like he is the conductor
to the orchestra that is the symphony of space walking. A pretty big
deal!
Fortunately the
space walk was scheduled for tomorrow so we were able to do our Skype
after all. (Please click HERE to watch the space walk live on April 23rd at 7:20am MST and listen for
Jeremy's voice!). All 80 kids and 5 teachers piled in to my classroom and
the excitement was palpable. What a great moment!
Jeremy talked to us about his journey in becoming an astronaut including Air
Cadets as a youth, being a CF-18 fighter pilot for the Canadian Air Force and
finally being chosen to join the CSA as an astronaut. He explained about
the detailed training including going on caving expeditions, geology and research in the arctic, space walk simulations in space suits under water,
and learning how to use the famous Canadarm. He talked about his job and
all of the experiences he has had so far with such joy and appreciation
that I think it was very inspiring for my students who are starting to find and
follow their own dreams.
Today is also Earth Day and he mentioned how aboard the ISS they have a really
good view of our entire world and that it is important to care for it. Wouldn't it be nice to see the world from way
up there? No borders or boundaries. Just planet Earth.
Jeremy
talked about the future of the space program and how in our lifetime we will
see a boom in scientific studies, commercial space flight, and
new discoveries and technologies that these kids could
very well be a part of. He told them
that no matter what their dreams are they need to find that thing they are
passionate about and go for it with all that they have.
He showed us two amazing videos that were distorted by our slow bandwidth. I thought I'd re-post them for you all to see.
The last
half was spent answering the plethora of questions the kids were itching to
ask. They wanted to know more details
about his training, goals, challenges, and even fears. I asked about his role in the space walk tomorrow,
the role of social media in promoting specifically Canadian astronauts, and any
photography tips he may have picked up.
Space selfie?
I want to say a HUGE thank you to
Jeremy for taking the time during such a busy and important week to talk to our
class. I know I found it very inspiring and
know my students will never forget it. I
also want to thank the CSA and NASA for the continual educational support. It is an exciting time to be a teacher! Merci.
Thank you.
La Nouvelle Beaumont News was there to
cover the story. They interviewed me and
some of the kids for an article in an upcoming addition. Keep an eye out! Here is the picture they took.
What an adventure! I am smiling so much my face hurts.
