SAN ANTONIO – A group of Southside High School students have taken their science experiments where few have gone before.
On Monday, the ninth-graders had the opportunity to open up the contents of their experiment, which was on board the International Space Station.
"I was really happy when I got the space experiment back since it took us months to research and I stayed after school for a thing this big to come back," said Neco Jimenez, a Southside High School ninth-grade student. "It's very exciting."
Jimenez said even though they just got their experiments back now from space, they started work on their experiments last year when they were in the eighth-grade.
They had to submit proposals and compete with students around the world to have their experiment fly on board the space station.
Southside High School was one of 10 schools selected and the students' experiment launched into space in August.
"Even if you're in a small rural area in South San Antonio, things like this are possible," said Dr. Rob Bryson, who teaches seventh- and eighth-grade science at Southside ISD. "Go the international stage and the Smithsonian to present and then to come back home to work hard and get everything fine-tuned."
U.S. Rep. Will Hurd was on hand as the students discussed their experiment, which focuses on surviving life in space.
Bryson said the experiment started with something abstract, the idea of "Can something like a fungus survive in space?"
The hypothesis from the students was no.
"We're really excited to see what's in there, like, how many spores were growing and how many colonies were made up in space?" Jimenez said.
Now that the results are in, the students will compare the results that they got in space with the results of the experiment that they did on Earth.
The students said the comparison should should take about a week.
