Students receive merit award at Thrive Home School Academy

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Two students from the Thrive Home School Academy were placed in the top 10 percent for their use of national project data in the annual Student Research Symposium.

On Monday, May 9, Amelia Anderson and Mele Jones, 11th graders at the academy, participated in the "Growing Beyond Earth" (GBE) initiative to find the perfect food plants to feed astronauts.

For seven years, students have partnered with NASA's Veggie Project and the Fairchild Botanical Gardens in Florida to provide NASA scientists data in order to find the best plant candidates. This is the academy's fourth year participating in the project under Dara Gardner.

The students complied a semester-long research project utilizing a variable LED light chamber. After, the project was presented to NASA scientists and botanists from the University of Wisconsin in the virtual symposium. Students from 60 schools were included in the project.

Over 295 middle and high schools participated in the fall project. Up to 60 projects were selected to create original research for the spring project.