NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — When astronaut Nick Hague comes to Hutchinson next month, the Cosmosphere plans to take advantage of his presence.
"Nick Hague loves the Cosmosphere," said the museum's Mimi Meredith. "He grew up in Hoxie and he found inspiration at the Cosmosphere when he was in junior high and came for his first field trip. When he was on the International Space Station, we had a downlink event and had local schools and the public all in the lobby of the Cosmosphere, visiting with Nick Hague live while he was in space."
The plan is to get some dedicated educators over to see him when he speaks at the Dillon Lecture Series April 5.
"We are going to participate in the lecture series with a group of 29 teachers from across the state who were chosen to be part of our Launch Learning fellowship," Meredith said. "That cohort of teachers will be gathering that day and we're going to walk over and take in the lecture."
Hague will also be doing some video recording for the Launch Learning platform and he'll also hear from some area students, as well.
"We have two local classrooms who will be participating in a project called the Tomatosphere™ challenge," Meredith said. "They are among students across the state of Kansas who have gotten seeds of tomato plants. They get two packets, one of seeds labeled A, the other B, and they don't know which seeds flew in space. They grow them in their classroom to see, do seeds that have been in space grow differently than seeds that have been on earth?"
Hague's flight was one that carried seed packets for the Tomatosphere™ challenge. Students will get to ask Hague questions and show their progress. Hague's lecture is at 10:30 a.m. April 5.