Traverse City Student Project To Go Into Space
TRAVERSE CITY (WWJ/AP) - An experiment concocted by students at a Traverse City high school will be sent into space.
The experiment, which will test how algae grows in near-zero gravity, will be sent to the International Space Station. The project was designed by four tenth grade honors chemistry students at Traverse City West Senior High School: Robert Lohr, Sam Church, Hayden Holmes and Ryan Hayes.
The students' project was picked from more than 200 proposed by students at the school as part of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program. It will join other national winners jetting into space in the spring.
"What we're doing is sending algae into space and we want to see if the effects of microgravity effect the growth of the algae," said Church.
The students will be performing a ground control experiment at the same time astronauts are carrying out the experiment in space.
"We hope that it will grow better up in space, that's the goal," said Lohr. "But if it doesn't, we're still happy that we had the experience."
The school was able to participate in the program thanks to a $20,000 grant from the Michigan STEM partnership. It is one of 22 schools, and the only one in Michigan, expected to send an experiment to the space station as part of this mission.
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