School Star : Astronaut Visits Students Who Sent Seeds Into Space

Fourth- and fifth-graders sent up a bunch of poppy seeds on a recent space shuttle mission as part of a class experiment. Not only did they get the seeds back--and no, they are not glowing green or shaped weird--but Friday they got a special visitor too.

Into the auditorium where they usually sit through award presentations and holiday events--which one youngster delicately called “boring”--walked Tamara Jernigan, a real life astronaut who flew on the shuttle that carried their seeds into space last November.

It didn’t seem to matter to them that she wore nothing resembling a space suit--instead, a power-red blazer with a briefcase.

It was what she showed and told that dazzled the young minds at McGaugh Elementary: They oohed and ahhed at her video depicting the shuttle rocketing into space; astronauts sipping a gob of fruit punch that floated in midair because of the weightless atmosphere, and Earth lazily drifting by under the shuttle.

When she told them she prepared for zero-gravity by flying straight up in an airplane and then straight down, simulating weightlessness for 25 seconds, many decided they would like to do that too.

When the orbiter touched down with a puff of smoke from the landing gear, the auditorium echoed with “wows.”

And just as she left, she wished them well with those seeds, which had arrived back at school a month ago courtesy of NASA, but didn’t offer them a clue about what might happen to them when they are planted in a couple of weeks. No, her specialties include something called “bipolar outflows in the region of star formations.”

But oh, how a visitor from space can set the imagination free.

Pondering those seeds and the fresh images of space, fifth-grader Geoffrey Straker shared this with another visitor, who has only ridden on Space Mountain at Disneyland: “I would like to see if you can actually grow a plant in space. Like a tree, out there in space, and then we could bring it back to Earth or put it in the space station so it can produce air for us to breathe.”

Geoffrey is a pupil in Jill Robinson’s class, who along with the fourth-graders in Renate Mircheff’s class, came up with the experiment. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) recommended them to Instrumentation Technology Associates, an Exeter, Pa., company that sponsors school space experiments.

Given the minute room on the shuttle for them, the teachers devised something simple and low-tech that the kids could easily observe: Send up California poppy seeds--the state flower--and see what happens when they are subsequently planted.

A previous NASA experiment with tomato seeds flown in space showed that the plants they later yielded on earth were, well, garden variety tomato plants.

But those were tomatoes and these are poppies.

“You have all those science fiction movies about giant mutant plants,” observed fourth-grader Patrick MacLyman, “so who knows? Maybe these will be giant. But I don’t think they will be mutant.”

No, the prospects do look dim on that count since the seeds--which came from a $1.49 packet bought from a local nursery--look pretty normal.

They sit packed 1-inch-high in a sealed test tube. They will be placed in a planter a week from Thursday and should sprout by April; another earthbound set from the same packet will serve as a control group in another planter.

Not even the teachers could predict how they will grow.

“I just hope they don’t die,” Mrs. Mircheff confided as her class busied themselves with papers.

In the teachers’ view, what the plants look like isn’t as important as the lesson: studying the scientific method and the space environment.

Any way to get kids hooked on science works for them. On Friday, with an astronaut in their midst, the job seemed easier.

Jernigan had them spellbound, answering questions about her fourth shuttle flight.

What was the scariest part and did anything go wrong?

“I never had anything truly scary,” she replied, adding that the only thing that went wrong was a stuck hatch that prevented her from walking in space.

Is the food good?

“Some of the food is good and some is not so good,” she said, perhaps showing some diplomacy (she may get another crack at space, after all).

Why is the space program important?

“It allows us to explore the world we live in. . . . It enhances the quality of life on Earth.”

And back in the classroom, at least one pupil was thinking about changing career plans.

“I wanted to be a doctor,” said fifth-grader Elyse Caldwell. “But being an astronaut is kind of cool.”