Touching down in Scotland for the second year running, the Mission Discovery programme saw over two hundred students from across Renfrewshire take part in a weeklong mission at Paisley’s Town Hall.

Working alongside and learning from NASA astronauts and scientist the S3 and S4 pupils who were split into groups mentored by students from West College Scotland and the University of the West of Scotland were asked to design an experiment that could be conducted in space.

Mission completed, the twenty four teams waited to hear their destiny after presenting their ideas to the panel of expert judges including that of current NASA Astronaut Stephen Bowen.

West College Scotland were delighted to learn that the winning team were mentored by Jason Dick an HNC Applied Science student from the College’s Greenock campus.

Speaking to Jason about his experience he commented, “It was a great project to be part of. Last year I was one of the students so it was really good to be on the flip side this year and actually mentor a team, giving them help and advice most of which I have learned from my College course.

“The team I had were great. They were quiet at first but with a bit of encouragement quickly came out of their shells and it was nice to see them grow in confidence. They had a lot of good ideas and I was really impressed with their winning experiment which involved comparing bacterial phages and antibiotics.

“They really wanted to win and worked extremely hard so I was really chuffed for them.”

In addition to the winning team two of the nine teams selected as finalist were also mentored by West College Scotland students – nineteen year old Amanda Allan an HNC Applied Science student and Julie Baille who is studying HND Biomedical Science.

Amanda commented, “As a science student I’m really passionate about the subject and thought this was the perfect opportunity to help get others involved in science and hopefully pass on and embed some of my love science in others.

“It was a fantastic project to be involved in. Meeting and the NASA astronauts and scientists was a real honour and really fascinating to hear what their training and jobs involved. I really enjoyed working with my group; they were a great bunch and worked really well as a team.

“I was like a proud mum when we heard they had been selected as finalists and they were all absolutely thrilled.”

The winning experiment is due to be tested at the International Space Station next year.