A hands-on summer experiment for your backyard laboratory, science camp curriculum, or anywhere curiosity grows.
Plant the Moon: Summer Lab was created as a more flexible spinoff of the official Plant the Moon Challenge. While the flagship program is more structured and competitive for use in classrooms, Summer Lab is about getting anyone and everyone involved in this citizen science experiment.
You set your own pace and timeline, choose your group size, and run your project your own way, which is what makes it an ideal fit for a wide range of settings.
Families can get their kids involved in an experiment that is educational without feeling like homework. Summer camps, clubs, and other organized programs can weave it into their curriculum as a whole group activity. The way you Plant the Moon is entirely up to you!
Open to students from across the globe!
Timeline
How It Works
Purchase your PTMC: Summer Lab Registration & Kit
For just $99 (plus shipping), you can receive your project kit as well as access to the competition platform with optional digital curriculum materials. Each kit comes with a 2kg container of lunar simulant, pH strips, five masks, five pairs of nitrile gloves, five small pots, and a Kit Companion Guide to help you get started.
Register your team on the ICS platform
Once you’ve purchased the PTMC: Summer Lab registration, you will have a team credit in the ICS competition platform. You will need to activate your team credit and set up your team to get access to the digital program materials included with your purchase. Check out this tutorial video for details.
Explore our Resource Library materials
The Resource Library on this website, in addition to the digital materials on the platform provide a wealth of knowledge and examples on how to set up your experiment. Review them to help narrow your focus and design your experiment.
Design your experiment
Now it’s time to start thinking about how you want to design your own experiment! You can design your experiment before you even receive the project kit.
Work as a team to define your parameters and variables. Every experiment is unique – there is no right set of variables to use. As a rule of thumb, you’ll want to have one independent variable that you’re trying to determine how it influences crop growth. You can reference the Fundamental Experiment Guide for a baseline example, but remember – this is not the only set of variables you can use!
Submit your final report
At the end of your 8-week grow period, submit your final project report to earn a certificate of completion. Congrats! You’re officially an aerospace botanist.
