Growing Beyond Earth®

Astrobotany Initiative

growing beyond earth
Growing Beyond Earth Mission Patch | Image Credit: Fairchild Garden
  • Status: Active
  • Location: United States (primarily)
  • Orgs Involved: NASA, Fairchild Garden
  • Astrobotanist Involved: Dr. Gioia Massa
  • Focus Area: Astrobotany Education, Citizen Science
  • Dates: 2016 – Present
  • Goal: To have classrooms perform plant experiments and generate valuable data for NASA space crop research.  

Summary

Growing Beyond Earth® (GBE) is a classroom-based citizen science project operated in partnership between Fairchild Garden and NASA, designed to advance NASA research on growing plants in space.

Over 40,000 middle and high school students and their teachers across the United States have generated valuable data for 180 varieties of edible plants for NASA through GBE’s programming.  GBE’s special relationship with NASA, its efficiency, and its commitment to students and educators have set the bar for astrobotany citizen science projects worldwide.  When it comes to astrobotany initiatives, GBE is one of the best for middle and high school educators to get involved with.