CHILDREN are preparing to become space biologists and embark on a voyage of discovery by growing seeds that have been into space.

Pupils at Victoria Road Primary in Runcorn are among 10,000 schools about to receive a packet of 100 seeds from space.

In September, 2015, two kilos of rocket seeds were flown to the International Space Station on Soyuz 44S as part of a Rocket Science project to celebrate British astronaut Tim Peake’s six month mission.

The seeds will have spent seven months in microgravity before returning to earth.

They are due to land in the Pacific Ocean in the spring. The exact date is not yet known.

Children will be given a packet of 100 space seeds to grow alongside 100 seeds that have stayed on earth and measure the differences over seven weeks.

A fun-packed collection of resources have been designed for teachers to link their biology studies into various other lessons.

Pupils won’t know which seed packet contains which seeds until all results have been collected by the RHS campaign for school gardening and analysed by professional biostatisticians.

Year five teacher Tracey Taylor said: “We are very excited to be taking part in Rocket Science.

“This experiment is a fantastic way of teaching our children to think more scientifically and share their findings with the whole community.”

Half a million children are taking part in the nationwide science experiment.

It will enable young people to think more about how human life could be preserved on another planet in the future.

They will be discover what astronauts need to survive long-term missions in space and the difficulties surrounding growing fresh food in challenging climates.

Rocket Science is just one educational project from a programme developed by the UK Space Agency to inspire young people to look into careers in science, technology, engineering, maths and horticulture.

Readers can follow the project on Twitter @RHSSchools #RocketScience.