Hundreds of students attended the Ohio Student Expo on April 8 to showcase their research projects. Following the expo’s end, two students will soon be able to find their project among the stars.
At the expo, Cat Gavin, a senior studying environmental and plant biology, and Lara Fogwell, a junior studying chemical engineering, stood in front of a poster titled “Effect of Microgravity on Growth of Nasturtium officinale In Promising Space Food.” Part of the exhibit was a small, clear tube filled with seeds of Nasturtium officinale, or watercress, with a ticket to space.
The project was over a year in the making as part of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program. SSEP was founded in June 2010 by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education as an educational initiative to provide real-world research experience to students. Under Sarah Wyatt’s direction, the program landed at OU in 2023.
“(The NCESSE) wanted to provide experiences for students from middle school to college to get a chance to explore the excitement of spaceflight,” Wyatt said.
Wyatt, a distinguished professor at OU, teaches two plant biology classes as part of the program: student spaceflight experiment and undergraduate research and presentation.
In class, teams of students learn to write proposals, design experiments and work under a strict set of guidelines. Each group of students receives the same piece of hardware: a clear, silicone tube about seven inches long with clamps on either side. Groups must design experiments to fit within the tube.
Research and proposal writing aren’t the only skills students foster in Wyatt’s class. Only one team’s experiment is chosen to launch into space each year, making teamwork an important facet of the class's curriculum.
Students Fogwell and Gavin will have their project sent to the International Space Station in the coming months. This news came after over a year of work; they first developed the project in Fall 2023, alongside recent graduate Jake Magula.
“The first year we competed, we were finalists, but were not selected,” Fogwell said. “I was just so excited for the group that did win, and then getting to have that be our opportunity this year is just so cool.”
Before even considering space, the first obstacle students must cross is determining the focus of their project.
“(Gavin and Magula) were both plant biology majors, so we definitely wanted to do something more plant related, which was a little out of my wheelhouse … I didn't start with such a passion for plants, but I feel like that's something I gained throughout this project,” Fogwell said.
Gavin and Fogwell’s project will be one of 21 going up during the SSEP’s Mission 19.
“Our project is focused on looking at how watercress responds to space flight and microgravity by looking at its germination, growth rate and starch accumulation,” Fogwell said.
Watercress was chosen for its edible and growing properties, as well as its high nutritional volume in comparison to its relatively low body mass.
“Once they are on the International Space Station, they're going to get combined with water and germinate and grow,” Gavin said. “They'll get a fixative while they're up there after a few weeks to stop all growth and then it'll come back down to us.”
The payload duration, the length of time the space plane is expected to be in space, is around four weeks. During these four weeks, astronauts aboard the space station will follow a series of instructions written by the students to complete their experiment.
“There's been some experimentation on watercress and microgravity, but not really to the extent that we're doing it,” Gavin said.
The team’s experiment is part of a modern movement looking to find a long-term solution for food in space.
“Pretty soon we're going to be sending people out in space for more time than you can pack a bunch of food for, so they have to learn how to grow food,” Gavin said.
Once the sample comes back to Earth, Gavin and Fogwell will compare its growth and germination rates to a control sample. No matter what they find, their work will be crucial in informing the future of long-term spaceflight.
The team’s project was initially scheduled to launch May 21, but as with all spaceflight endeavors, the date is highly subject to change. Thanks to this program and all involved, it can officially be said OU isn’t present just around the world, but has made it out into the great unknown.
