The Choctaw Heirloom Seeds investigation flew 5 styles of heirloom seeds from the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma aboard the Worldwide Area Station in early November 2023. The seeds are Isito (Choctaw Candy Potato Squash), Tobi (Smith Peas), Tanchi Tohbi (Flour Corn), Tvnishi (Lambsquarter), and Chukfi Peas. The seeds spent six months aboard station, returning to Earth in April 2024.

Subsequent spring, Jones Academy college students will plant the space-flown seeds alongside Earth-bound seeds of the identical sort within the college’s Rising Hope Backyard. College students will hypothesize how the seeds will develop and make observations all through the rising season.

Center college academics are growing curriculum incorporating the seeds’ journey to area station and college students’ experiments within the backyard. This analysis may affect Native and Indigenous populations throughout america, inviting underrepresented teams to interact with science, know-how, engineering, and arithmetic.

Picture credit score: NASA/Loral O’Hara