Chapin, SC (WLTX) -- It's the kind of science project a kid might only dream of, until now, as Chapin Middle School tries to see what happens to butterflies in zero gravity.
"Were going to do it as the astronauts do it on the International Space Station," said 8th grader Samuel New.
With his classmates, New is trying to answer a question alongside astronauts: what happens to a butterfly's chrystalis when it's at zero gravity? Related link: Space Shuttle Atlantis Launches to International Space Station
"When you are are in space, you can't tell up from down," said Pre-engineering and Technology class teacher, Kim Berry.
"Butterflies, or the larvae, know to make their chrystalis so that it hangs down. Well, we don't know what these larvae are going to do when they get up there because they can't tell up from down."
Her students are acting as the control group, watching their own butterflies grow at the same rate as those space-bound "butterflynauts."
"I don't know all the answers, my job is to help them find the answers," she said.
The variable is gravity. Thirteen-year-old New has a hypothesis.
"I think they'll just adapt to just being zero gravity environment," he said, shrugging his shoulders.
"They have to fight to get out of that chrystalis and that's what helps their wings to form," Berry said.
Berry says, her students have started their countdown to a memorable and historical science project.
"One day you're going to be my age, and they're going to be talking about what happened on Space Shuttle Mission 129 and you're going to be able to say, I participated in that historical event," she said.
11/17/2009 9:17:29 AM
