Canadian Kindergarten through Grade 12 Educators – Investigate the effects of outer space on seed germination with your class. Tomatosphere™ is a hands-on program that builds scientific inquiry and experimentation skills.

Tomatosphere™ offers an excellent opportunity to have your students think and act like scientists as they practice their inquiry skills and develop understandings of the nature of science and the concept of a fair test.

In the spring, participating classrooms receive two packages of tomato seeds. One package contains seeds sent into space or treated in space-simulated conditions. The other contains untreated "control" seeds. Students plant the seeds and conduct experiments to explore the effects of the space environment on the germination of tomatoes. Through Tomatosphere™, students learn how to conduct a scientific experiment and compare the number of seeds that germinate for the two groups of seeds.

While completing the Tomatosphere™ program, students investigate how to supply space exploration missions with life-support requirements—food, water, oxygen and a way to consume the carbon dioxide exhaled by astronauts—while also discussing the many issues and research involved in space exploration.

Teachers can expand on the basic Tomatosphere™ Seed Investigation by connecting it to studies of plants, space, nutrition, math or the environment, depending on grade and curriculum.

What is Write-Around Discussion?
This strategy provides students with opportunity to either activate prior knowledge on a topic or consolidate recently-learned information. This strategy is for use with small groups of students.

Why use it?
To provide students with the opportunity to practice the skills of communication, collaboration, and critical thinking.
To help students consolidate learning of new material by immediate use of the information.
To help students activate prior knowledge on a topic to be discussed in class.
To provide all students in class with an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of a particular topic.