A team of fourth graders from a small public charter school on Kauai has scored the national honor of having their science experiment on sugar cane growth flown to the International Space Station in May.

The student team from Alaka‘i o Kaua‘i Charter School prevailed over six other finalist teams from around the country in the latest DreamUp to Space Mission Experiment Design Challenge. DreamUp is the educational affiliate of Nano­racks, a private space company that brings research payloads and small satellites to the International Space Station.

The winning experiment proposal by “Team Ko” — students Persais Sasil, Hudson Sherrill and Omar Maes — was inspired by the plentiful sugar cane surrounding their campus in Koloa, and Hawaii’s deep connections to agriculture and the Polynesian voyagers, said school Director David Adams.

“They understand that sugar cane has medicinal purposes, sugar cane has the ability to provide nutrition … it can be used to build things,” he said. They proposed studying the effect of microgravity on sugar cane seed germination “with the vision that maybe one day if we go to other planets, other spaces, should we take sugar cane there and grow it?”

Their hypothesis is that the seeds will germinate faster in space than on Earth, based on the fact that sugar cane is a relative of bamboo, which can grow hydroponically, or in water.

The students’ work actually is only beginning, Adams said. Next they will collaborate with at least two scientists on Kauai to design and build the experiment so it can fit in a special 10-inch tube. It has to survive shipping to Cape Canaveral, Fla., a month ahead, for vetting by NASA, and then the launch itself, and must be almost entirely self-sustaining.

Meanwhile, up to nine students from Alaka‘i o Kaua‘i will fly to Cape Canaveral in May, where they will get to stage formal presentations on the experiment and see the rocket take off with their experiment aboard.

The win has ignited the ambitions of all of the 200 students at the K-6 school. “I distinctly hear on campus now, ‘Hey, I want to be an astronaut! I want to learn how to design rockets!’” Adams said. “We have students who are looking up to the skies to see the International Space Station as it passes over Hawaii. Now they’re dreaming about going there someday. It’s lit a fuse of imagination, of dreams that can become reality.”