Student Spaceflights Experiments Program experiment creators Cade Lamont, Sydney Holler, Jason Liszka and Trey Saulsbery from Jamestown High School in Jamestown, Pa. will test in space how LebanonTurf Products use microbes and bacteria to break down organic fertilizers in soil and fertilize roots.

LebanonTurf, a leading provider of innovative plant nutrition products to the golf and landscape industries in North America, has announced that two of its products will be sent to the International Space Station as part of a new round of zero-gravity scientific tests.

ROOTS® Healthy Start® 3-4-3 and ROOTS® PHC BioPak are two soil care and fertilization products that will be sent to the International Space Station on Mission 4. This experiment was designed to examine how a zero-gravity environment affects bacteria's ability to decompose organic matter. Both products use microbes and bacteria to break down organic fertilizers in soil and fertilize roots.

Ninth- and tenth-grade students at Jamestown High School in Jamestown, Pa., under the direction of biology teacher Harry Rohrsbach, created the notion for this experiment. The students submitted their idea to the Student Spaceflights Experiments Program, a group that selects student-organized experiments for testing in low Earth orbit.

"The students were excited when they heard that we had been chosen," said Rohrsbach. "We're working on raising funds to take the class down to Virginia to watch the mission launch."

The launch was tentatively scheduled for December 17, 2013, from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va.

For more information on Mission 4 to the International Space Station, visit the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program website.