Recreating Mark Watney's Potato Farm

So we all starting thinking about how and if we could create our own potato farm in school.

We started thinking about the obstacles;

• no sunlight
• no one available 24/7 to water the plants
• soil or something else?

A little more research and we discovered the word/technique: 
hydroponics (noun) 1. the cultivation of plants by placing the roots in liquid nutrient solutions, rather than in soil; soil less growth of plants

We jotted our ideas on the board:

Potatoes and Butternut squash

Connect to the Space Station

So we have discovered that there is a space station orbiting the earth right now (actually it has been orbiting for 15 years).  There are 3-6 astronauts in the station at one time, one astronaut is named Scott Kelly, originally from New Jersey and we recently found out they have an experimental lunar garden on board.

These are some cool gif's about the past 15 years aboard the space station (click on the link below)

15 Years on the Space Station


Maybe we can contact the astronauts to find out how they grow plants without sunlight.