PULASKI CO. -- On a recent shuttle mission, seeds were taken up to space and have just now been given to local students in Pulaski County. Their job is to find out how they'll grow.

Students continue to go about there normal class work as they learn about soil and minerals. This year with the help of NASA and a local man, things will be a little more exciting.

"Basically this is the Space Day in Pulaski County effort. It's a year long educational initiative which brings opportunities for our local schools, churches, boy scouts, girl scouts," said Richard Conn, retired software engineer who grew up in Pulaski County and is now sharing passion for science with local kids. "To try to get them basically to become excited about math and science," added Conn.

Conn asked schools like West Central Middle School if they wanted to take part in the Space Day program which would involve growing seeds that traveled to space and back on a NASA shuttle.

Sally Sharpe, a sixth grade teacher at West Central Middle School in Pulaski County, was thrilled with the idea. "We, in sixth grade grow seeds every year and so we kind of said, 'Could we do it?' And they let us do it."

The students and teachers got the seeds just this past week.

"I'm excited, it's a lot different. We usually don't get this kind of chance to grow seeds from NASA that have been in space," said Tylor Clemens, a sixth grader.

But will the seeds that have been in space grow like normal seeds?

Jake Stevens, another sixth grade student, has some thoughts. "The seeds from space might be an interfering variable because if it came down and something happened in the atmosphere something could happen with the seed and it could not grow."

They'll use a controlled growth chamber to find out if the seeds will grow and how space travel would impact seeds on a mission to Mars.

"Well, Mars is made of sand so if we wanted to grow a plant up there we'd probably have to take soil with us," said student Austin Davis.

They'll also do some experiments they thought up on their own.

"We're going to experiment with a whole bunch of lights to see what color would make it grow faster," added Heather Carty, another student.

Then they'll share their data. "And we're hoping that NASA uses our results," said Sharpe.

This is clearly a great opportunity for both students and teachers.

"I'm hoping that this continues their quest for finding information. Because they've been thinking like scientists, they're coming up with more questions than answers which is usually what scientists do," added Sharpe.

Students are now perfecting growing seeds that have never left Earth as practice. They plan on planting the new space seeds, cinnamon basil, in the next few weeks.