Saving the World in Sixth Grade − 8 December, 2007
Like I said in my last article: I've been busy. Helping to save the world, this time.
Sort of.
Last year, my sixth grade science class designed their own spaceships for a hypothetical mission to the moon. They had to think of everything that could go wrong in advance and plan accordingly. Then, when the problems came, they could only solve the problems using the equipment they'd thought to bring along.
Well, this year, I topped that.
This year's class designed a mission to stop a killer asteroid.
There is a real asteroid out there named Apophis. Originally it made the news in 2004 because it was predicted to strike the Earth in 2029. Additional measurements and calculations showed it would miss. However, they also showed that if the asteroid passed through exactly the right region between the Earth and the Moon, its orbit would be altered enough that it would return in 2036 . . . and this time, not miss.
Today, the risk of impact is estimated to be 1 in 45,000. Nevertheless, for the purpose of the project, I told them to pretend it was certain to hit. Their task:
This, of course, was the final task in our space unit. It's one thing to remember "fun facts" about astronomy; it's quite another to use them to create a cooperative story, set in the future, in which a brave team has to overcome risks and challenges to save the world.
Needless to say, this is one of those long stories of mine, so I'm going to tell it in parts. I'll link to the later parts from this entry.
Continued.
Sort of.
Last year, my sixth grade science class designed their own spaceships for a hypothetical mission to the moon. They had to think of everything that could go wrong in advance and plan accordingly. Then, when the problems came, they could only solve the problems using the equipment they'd thought to bring along.
Well, this year, I topped that.
This year's class designed a mission to stop a killer asteroid.
There is a real asteroid out there named Apophis. Originally it made the news in 2004 because it was predicted to strike the Earth in 2029. Additional measurements and calculations showed it would miss. However, they also showed that if the asteroid passed through exactly the right region between the Earth and the Moon, its orbit would be altered enough that it would return in 2036 . . . and this time, not miss.
Today, the risk of impact is estimated to be 1 in 45,000. Nevertheless, for the purpose of the project, I told them to pretend it was certain to hit. Their task:
- Design a spaceship capable of performing a mission to prevent the impact.
- Create team members for the mission, and assign skills to each one.
- List any extra equipment they would need on the mission.
This, of course, was the final task in our space unit. It's one thing to remember "fun facts" about astronomy; it's quite another to use them to create a cooperative story, set in the future, in which a brave team has to overcome risks and challenges to save the world.
Needless to say, this is one of those long stories of mine, so I'm going to tell it in parts. I'll link to the later parts from this entry.
Continued.
Comments:
intrepideddie (December 9, 2007. 12:29pm)
This is so cool. Fair warning, though: you might want to have your students look into patenting their ideas... NASA could very well come along and "borrow" them (they sure don't seem to be coming up with much).