Work Plan Session 7

Session  7

AFK

YouTube video

Seven minutes of Terror. Film - Mars Curiosity lander design process and journey.

Link : youtube

In World

Transport Pod Building continues this session.  A huge emphasis on getting a module that is air tight and large enough to transport and house the whole tribe.

The pod must be made from a product that will with stand the extreme temperatures.

Photos of some of the Pod's students built.

Tribal Clothes and Flag

This is Perawot Tribe with their tribal clothing and flag.

The Biosphere

The following link is about the biosphere experiement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWKghqOajDo

This clip proceed a lot of conversation and ideas around what living together in small confined spaces can do to humans.

It also allowed the students to move away from physical ideas and start to consider social and emotional needs for human survival.

This also lead to many of the student's space pods being completely redesigned to take into consideration privacy.

Seven Minutes of Terror

To give the students a greater understanding of the risks a journey to Mars would entail we show them Seven Minutes Of Terror.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki_Af_o9Q9s

This sparked an interesting conversation around time and truly placed in perspective just how far way Mars was and the sorts of inquering and resilient  minds are needed to create and solve such complex problems.

The sense of drama and journey

The films we created to launch and carry this project add a sense of theatre, drama and a sense of journey to our students learning.  Much like a films script, the journey is punctuated with problems, crisis and a sense of urgency.

Mars Mission

My students and I love Mission to Mars sessions.  The students are engaged, learning and on task. 

Every time the year 7 students are working on their mission to Mars they are applying learned skills in a ‘real life’ context that provides opportunities for learning that are not available in a traditional classroom.  The students have had to prepare a mission to Mars with their team. This has involved deciding on resources and tools that would be useful for a human colony on Mars and building a space craft to meet survival and transportation requirements.  Students have built on knowledge and skills from all subjects areas and have had to apply these to create a successful mission. 

Mission to Mars had enabled the students to learn requirements for human survival in a hostile environment, mathematical skills such as measurement and ratio as they build objects in the world.  Students have learnt and practiced important team work skills such as collaborative decision making, delegating responsibility and meeting shared deadlines.  Mission to Mars has engaged reluctant learners and helped them take responsibility for their own learning as they contribute to the team goals. The students have thrived in the virtual environment where they can explore possibilities and experiment in ways unavailable in an ordinary communications lesson.

Amelia Guillet

Year 7 Communications teacher.