Teachers and Students Investigating Plants in Space: A Teacher's Guide with Activities for Life Sciences

摘要

In May of 1995, the presidents of the United States and Ukraine issued a joint statement on cooperation in space, directing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Space Agency of Ukraine (NSAU) to cooperate on a joint Space Shuttle mission. The United States and Ukraine announced that a Ukrainian payload specialist would fly aboard this mission, STS-87, scheduled for October of 1997. The project was named the 'Collaborative Ukrainian Experiment,' or 'CUE.' From plant science microgravity experiments on previous missions of the Russian, Ukrainian, and American space programs, scientists have observed various abnormal growth and developmental phenomena in plants. The CUE projects are designed to address specific questions raised in prior experiments. American scientists and their teams of colleagues and students, with Ukrainian scientists and their research teams, will be running 12 separate experiments as part of the science payload on STS-87. Several plant biology experiments will be run in an environmentally controlled Plant Growth Facility. As a part of the total CUE mission, an Education Project has been established with the Wisconsin Fast Plants Program at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and the National Academy of Science of Ukraine, through the Ukrainian Junior Academy of Science in Kiev. The Education Project involves teachers and students in both countries and is called 'T'SIPS' - Teachers and Students Investigating plants in space. During the same time as the joint Space Shuttle flight, students throughout the United States and Ukraine will be undertaking experiments to determine what is normal for biological events or stages in the life cycle of AstroPlants under the Earth's gravity. Seedlings of other plants may also be used to examine the effects of gravity and light on orientation and guidance in plants. The information that students gather will provide them with the basis for understanding a number of biological phenomena and principles, including phenotypic expression, variation, growth, orientation, reproduction and embryogeny. Students can compare their observations with those made in the microgravity environment by the CUE researchers.