Science, art, shop, and music students took part in the five-year GAS project at Camden and Woodrow Wilson High Schools in Camden, New Jersey. Backed by their faculties and technical experts at RCA Corporation and Temple University, science students built an ant farm to learn if weightlessness would affect the colony's social structure. Behind the scenes, helpers from other classes fabricated the container housing, painted Orbit "81 murals, produced a GAS newsletter, and enacted plays for fund raisers. Although the colony perished aboard the Shuttle, learning did not stop after the flight. Biology students investigated the colony upon its return. They concluded that the ants died of dehydration when the GAS container was purged with dry air during preflight preparations. Even so, students rated their project a success: in their words, it "gave Camden students the opportunity to prove that they are as capable in the sciences as they are in sports.
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