Pre-school children in Enfield are to become astro-biologists by growing seeds which have been in space.

Head Start day nursery in Enfield will be one of 10,000 schools to receive a packet of 100 seeds from space, which they will grow alongside seeds that haven’t been to space and measure the differences over seven weeks.

In September, 2kg of rocket seeds were flown to the International Space Station (ISS) on Soyuz 44S where they spent several months in microgravity before returning back to Earth in March.

Hayley Ridley, a teacher at Head Start, said the nationwide science experiment will let the children think more about how we could preserve human life on another planet in the future, what astronauts need to survive long-term missions in space and the difficulties surrounding growing fresh food in challenging climates.

She said: “This experiment is a fantastic way of teaching our children to think more scientifically and they will share their findings with the whole nursery.

“The children have always been very interested in space, therefore this is the perfect way to engage their interests further.”