SEEDS destined for Haworth Primary and Holy Family Catholic school have gone into orbit – quite literally!

The two schools are among more than 10,000 UK schools signed up to take part in a national horticultural "citizen science" growing experiment.

Each school is assigned a package of 100 seeds, and these have been transported to the International Space Station.

The seeds departed from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on Soyuz 44S – the same flight that delivered European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen and his crew to the ISS.

Pupils from Haworth Primary and Keighley's Holy Family school will be personally involved in the project.

They will grow and compare the seeds as they embark on a voyage of discovery, to see whether human life can be sustained in space through the production of food.

The results of their experiment will be analysed to discover whether space travel has impacted on the growth of the seeds.

Haworth Primary head Helen Thompson said: "It’s a huge privilege to be part of this historic mission. Our aim is to make science fun and inspire our children to consider a future career in STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and maths."

A spokesman for Holy Family said: “We are very excited to be taking part in Rocket Science.

"This experiment is a fantastic way of teaching our students to think more scientifically, and to share their findings with the whole school."