NESTON School is coming back down to earth after speaking to a NASA astronaut in space and is planning the development of a unique moon base.

The base will be built on the school playground and will incorporate a number of themed rooms to provide a hands-on approach to teaching.

NESTA (National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts) has awarded the school £35,000 to develop the interactive education centre. The organisation invests money into UK creativity and innovation.

Headteacher Linda Davies said their project captured NESTA's imagination to such an extent that they skipped the application process and went straight through to the third and final round. "We put an application into NESTA and it was passed to their education department. They were really excited about it," she said. "They were so impressed they said they were going to give us the money straightaway."

A planning application has been submitted to North Wiltshire District Council and the school hopes it will be granted over the summer, allowing construction work to start in September.

"It looks a bit like the Eden Project. We had the children making designs for it and it will include a mirror maze, a rocket-shaped growing zone and an aqua zone that will include the pond and may be a crater zone later on," said Mrs Davies.

The moon base will be developed in phases and Mrs Davies said she hopes other schools in the area will be able to use it too.

"My colleagues are queuing up to use it already," said Mrs Davies.

The aim of the base is to help children learn about control technology through interactive work. It also complements a Government trend to encourage children back into engineering.

"Children can learn so much more when they can try things out for themselves and see how things work," said Mrs Davies.