Asian Herb in Space Programme
In May 2018, the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), under the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, launched the Asian Herb in Space Programme. This programme was initiated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) with the mission to ship out seeds from membership countries to the International Space Station (ISS) to establish space technology connections and collaborations.
In Thailand, BIOTEC, under the NSTDA umbrella and along with Kasetsart University (Kamphaeng Saen Campus) selected the Golden Shower tree (ton Ratchaphruek in Thai) for this mission because it is the national tree of Thailand. The Golden Shower Tree is well known for their gorgeous bright golden yellow blossoms and this colour is also used as the Science Faculty’s colour.
NSTDA handed over 360 Golden Shower tree seeds to JAXA on 26th February 2019, along with other selections from 11 member countries for flight inspection. The seeds were taken to space on 7th December 2020 - Thailand’s seeds were stored in JAXA Kibo module for 7 months before being sent back on 10th July 2021 to observe the Golden Shower tree growth and development back on earth. NSTDA then collaborated with Mahidol University to germinate and observe the space seeds at the Department of Plant Science Research Greenhouse. The goal was to investigate any changes from their space environment exposure. Institutions from around Thailand were then invited to apply to take part in growing these plants in their areas so that they could help with the research. St Andrews is proud to have been one of the selected intuitions and we had received the seedlings to plant during World Soil Day.
Image Credit: Tim's Thailand
A Student’s Reflections on World Soil Day | Written by Pearl and Kirpa [Year 9]
In honour of World Soil Day, Khroo Kitty and a group of dedicated students invited Ajarn Noke (School Director), Mr Roo (Head of High School) to commemorate this special day by planting two trees at the High School's Spirit House. World Soil Day is a day when we as a community divert our attention to the importance of healthy soil and understand how crucial healthy soil is to us. Healthy soil gives us big beautiful trees (which provide us with our oxygen and helps to rid our air of CO2), and fresh yummy food. It falls on the 5th of December of every year in honour of King Rama 9 who officially sanctioned the event. King Rama 9 was said to be a very “down to earth man” who travelled to the remotest areas of Thailand and sat on the ground with farmers and villagers to listen to their issues and provide solutions by launching more than 4,000 sustainable development projects. Because of this we celebrate World Soil Day on his birthday, the 5th of December every year.
Now people all over the world celebrate this day along with our school which truly sees the importance of healthy soil. During the years we have had a new soil campaign to focus on such as: stopping soil erosion, stopping the soil pollution and this year's focus on food grown from soil.
We as a Thai class participated in celebrating World Soil Day by doing things like:
• Planting Golden Shower trees
• Traditional rice grinding
• Making compost out of krathongs (from the recent Loy Krathong festival)
• Making posters to raise awareness within the STA community
All of the activities we participated in helped us to realise the importance of soil since good and healthy soil is crucial to make the plants grow healthy and strong.
On Tuesday 20th December, selected students joined the handover ceremony with NSTDA at Thailand Science Park, which is located in Science Park, Pathumthani. We were given the special Golden Shower tree seedlings from the Asian Herb In Space Project which are from seeds that were sent into space! The Golden Shower tree is special because it is the national flower of Thailand, as the bright yellow represents both Buddhism and King Rama 9. These flowers are used for many important festivals, the yellow flowers are used as decorations, temples all around Thailand use the plant to splash water on Buddha statues and fellow Thais during the Songkran Festival, and Thais also use the plant to pray. We were very fortunate to come together as a community to learn more about the importance of the Golden Shower tree and learn about the growing process.
Khroo Kitty’s Year 9 Thai class and Ms Kiyomi’s Year 8 Japanese class came together to use the compost previously made by students to help the plants grow into the beautiful Golden Shower trees. The compost was made from recycled things all over our school and is completely eco friendly. We used leftover eggshells from the canteen and leaves from the making of krathongs on Loy Krathong Day. Then we all helped plant the tree into the healthy soil (with our compost) which is now ready to grow some more! While we were re planting the plants we were also accompanied by Mr Paul, Khroo Noke and Mr Roo who were very helpful throughout the whole process.
In addition, during our Thai lessons we got to experience how much effort it takes to harvest a grain of rice. Firstly, the rice was collected, and after that we were able to take that rice to pound in a mortar (ครก) to separate the peel from the grain. Following that, we had to hand separate the peel and collect the grains of rice. We then were able to see how much work it took just to get one grain of rice and the value the grain of rice had. This method was used by the farmers all throughout Thailand and still to this day there are still some people using this method.
Now there are new technologies like tractors, rice transplanting, etc... which help farmers work more efficiently. We have learned a lot and now value rice much more as we know the amount of work and effort that the farmers put into getting the rice for us! Altogether this has been a very important project for us to be part of and it has been a great learning opportunity for us all.
The Future Looks Green
The students will continue to observe the growth of the trees along with help from our school gardeners. St Andrews is very excited to be part of this project and we look forward to seeing all the developments yet to come and sharing our findings with NSTDA.
