Fast Plants on the Space Shuttle... The Data is Back
Collaborative Ukrainian Experiment:
Teachers and Students Investigating Plants in Space
Students from around the United States and throughout Ukraine were ground-based participants in the CUE-TSIPS plant science experiment during the Nov. 19-Dec. 5 mission of Space shuttle STS-87. The students ran simulations of the B-STIC experiment and faithfully recorded data on plant height, day on which the plants first flowered, the number of seed pods and seed produced by their AstroPlants. Many of the students have entered their data on the Fast Plants Program server at http://fastplants.cals.wisc.edu.
The classroom data are mainly from middle and high school classrooms, but some elementary student data are also represented. Teacher communications with the Fast Plants office indicate that the students took their task seriously and were very keen on doing something with NASA. Teachers themselves often used the CUE-TSIPS investigation to coincide with their units on the principles and behavior of plants. There was great interest in the Ukrainian astronaut, Leonid Kadenyuk, and the NASA downlinks of him pollinating and measuring the plants.
Thirty students in the U.S. and thirty-two in Ukraine participated in a live downlink Q & A session with astronaut Kadenyuk on December 1, trying to ascertain similarities and differences in the way the plants grew in orbit and on the ground. American students attending the launch at Cape Kennedy on November 19th met the group of nine Ukrainian students who had come for the event. On the afternoon that the shuttle landed Principal Investigator, Mary Musgrave, sent the information that the Shuttle plants looked normal and that the seed pods were forming on the plants that had been pollinated in space.
Looking
at the Data
There was a
prominent difference in the data observed by U.S. students and students
in Ukraine. The first graph (above) shows the average plant height,
in mm, of the AstroPlants on day 14. Typical AstroPlants are shorter
than
basic Fast Plants-about 5 cm tall on day 14.
Graphs
2 and 3 represent a small sample of the CUE-TSIPS data, that which
has been received up to March 31, 1998 from classes around the United
States and in Ukraine.
It is interesting to reflect
on the notable differences in average plant height at 14 das (days
after sowing)
between
AstroPlants grown in the United States and those in Ukraine. What
are some of the possible reasons for the distinct bimodality (see
CUE-TSIPS manual, p. 27) in the international data? What hypostheses
do you have for the observed differences? What experiment could be
conducted to address these questions? This is what science is all
about!
At the same time, note how similar the performance of the AstroPlants was with respect to days to first flower when compared between the U.S. and Ukraine. What are these data telling us about the growth and development of the plants in relation to reproduction?
It is very interesting to compare the student data taken under earth gravity with the data reported by Dr. Mary Musgrave from the plants grown in microgravity in STS-87 (Table 1). Although relatively few plants (n=18) on STS-87 were measured, the plant heights and seed number per pod are comparable with those reported from the classroom experiments.
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For your further comparison, we have
included frequency histograms of the AstroPlants stock, phenotypic
data for the total height at 14 das and number of days to first
flower (See Tables 4 and 5). These data are from the Seed Stock Document for AstroPlants and represent the variation in plants grown under "standardized," defined conditions. This article excerpted and adapted from the Wisconsin Fast Plants newsletter Fast Plants/Bottle Biology Notes, Spring 1998. Check the Wisconsin Fast Plants Website. |
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