U.S Agency Trains Nigerian Students On Space Research

The American Space Agency, under the auspices of Magnitude.io, recently launched a research called Exo Lab Mission, to bring together selected students from around the globe on space research.

The research explores crop planting and monitoring from the international space station.

Students of Government Secondary School, Garki, in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Abuja, alongside other students worldwide, are participating in the pioneering research with the U.S National Laboratory on the International Space Station (ISS).

In the experiment, the selected students are brought together in a virtual set-up to investigate the effects of microgravity on living things.

In Nigeria, the research is sponsored by YouthHubAfrica in collaboration with Magnitude.io Inc.

Here, students monitor and grow red clover plants in a 1G environment on Earth as part of the ground control experiment and compare results to the flight experiment in the microgravity environment of the International Space Station (ISS).

YouthHubAfrica’s Programme Manager Olusegun Medupin explained that the programme is called “the legume in space”.

He added: “The aim of the programme is to get our students interested in science and science-related areas of endeavor. Presently, there is a planting going on in the ISS. They want to know if legume can grow in space; see if they can grow one there.

“The same situation is set up in a controlled environment at the GSS in Garki. We compare the data: the one here sends its temperature, humidity and lightening into an online drive and the one in space does same for comparison.

“We are so happy that the school has taken it a bit further than we expected by checking if the crops could be reproduced on earth. This means their thinking is broadened already.

“Only two schools in Africa are participating in this programme. Why most schools cannot easily partake at the moment is the fact that it is expensive. For instance, we purchased the apparatus needed between $2,000 and $3,000 and it needs to be bought in the U.S.”

One of the participating students in the research, 15-year-old, Senior Secondary (SS) 2 pupil of GSS Garki, Nwokedi Munachi said: “The programme was hosted by Exo Lab. They asked a question: How does gravity affect living things? Throughout all the researches that we have been carrying out, we realise that gravity actually affects it. This is because if you notice, the growth on soil is larger than when it is affected by gravity.”

-NATION