Wattle Seeds In Space Ceremony

The program is a collaboration between Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and One Giant Leap Australia Foundation and supported by the Australian Space Agency.  As part of the program, golden wattle seeds were sent to the International Space Station (ISS).  The seeds were in Kibō, a Japanese science module in ISS developed by JAXA, for six months (December 2020 to June 2021) before recently returning to Australia to be distributed to more than 300 national locations for planting.  The program signifies the strong Japan Australia bilateral ties, expanding to Space Cooperation.  Each planting location requires a kit which contains a small greenhouse, growing medium and all material together with the seeds.  To celebrate the flourishing Japan-Australia relationship, One Giant Leap Australia Foundation has kindly donated two kits for two schools in Victoria.

Frankston High School was been selected for this Wattle Seeds In Space Project.

We held a special ceremony which included some of our local and international students germinating the seeds.  Frankston High School welcomed a number of special guests along with our Frankston High School staff and students including:

• Consul-General Junji Shimada
• Kaoru Shimada and Junko Kobayashi from the Consulate-General of Japan
• Eleanora Macaro, Joanne Ma and Siobhan Marsh from the Department of Education and Training (DET)
• Bob and Jackie Carpenter from One Giant Leap Australia (OGLA),

Thank you to Lorraine Buttery, Sharon Koning, Elise Roper, Kirsty Baxter, Yuka Mukaiyama and Cathy Hogg for their efforts organising and participating in the ceremony.  We look forward to seeing what happens to those seeds that travelled to space.