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The eagle has landed – Science Week is here!

The eagle has landed – Science Week is here!

The eagle has landed – Science Week is here!

From 10 to 18 August 2019, National Science Week will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing and first moon walk. The theme, ‘Destination moon: more missions, more science’, aims to captivate children with the world in which they live; a world where the possibility of interplanetary travel and extraterrestrial colonisation becomes more real every day.

Picture a nine-year-old Canadian boy spending his summer at his family’s cottage on Stag Island in Ontario. Late on the evening of 20 July 20, 1969, the boy’s family and just about everyone else on the island cram themselves into their neighbour’s living room—the only cottage with a television set. The boy sits on the back of the sofa to raise himself high enough to see the screen. What he is about to see will set the course for the rest of his life—man’s first step on the moon.

Later that evening, walking back to his family’s cottage, the boy looked up at the moon. It was no longer a distant orb in the sky but a place that people could travel to, walk on and study. The impossible had suddenly become possible. At that very moment, the boy knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to become an astronaut.

The boy’s dream would be realised 23 years later when he was accepted into the astronaut program by the Canadian Space Agency in 1992. He enjoyed an impressive career spanning over 21 years, amassing 166 days in space and becoming the first Canadian to not only spacewalk but also live aboard the International Space Station (ISS)—which he was also the commander of.

Furthermore, he became widely known for his zero-gravity guitar-playing after recording David Bowie’s Space oddity while aboard the ISS. Through a series of videos and tweets from space he was able to inspire the world and share what it is like to live in orbit. Now retired, he continues his mission to inspire the world with space travel, just as he was inspired as a nine-year-old 50 years ago. His name is Colonel Chris Hadfield (Hadfield, 2013).

 

Inspire young minds with space science

A powerful moment such as the moon landing can have a profound effect on a child, much like that of Hadfield. As Hadfield described to CTV news (2019) in a recent interview, it wasn’t just his life that was so strongly influenced by the moon landing, ‘we learned and inspired a huge change in human expectation in what we could do. There were more PHDs per capita in the United States in the 10 years after Apollo than any time before’.

With Science Week upon us, there is no better time to inspire your students by engaging them with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) current initiatives. Who knows, you could have a future space explorer in your class! Unsure of where to start? Here are a few ideas:

  • Artemis program: NASA is committed to landing on the moon again by 2024, which will include the first woman and the next man. The Artemis program will 'inspire a new generation and encourage careers in STEM…(and) also demonstrate new technologies, capabilities, and business approaches needed for future exploration, including Mars’ (NASA [1], 2019). For more information on the Artemis program visit NASA’s Artemis webpage: https://www.nasa.gov/artemis
  • Mars Exploration Program:  NASA is working toward the Mars 2020 rover mission as part of their Mars Exploration Program, with the purpose of addressing high-priority science goals for Mars exploration, including key questions about the potential of past and future life on Mars (NASA [2], 2019). The Mars 2020 mission website includes amazing images and information, including live streaming of NASA building the 2020 mars rover. There is even an opportunity to send your name to Mars with the rover. All of this is available at https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/.
  • NASA on Twitter: NASA has several engaging Twitter™ accounts sharing their plans and achievements with the world. Below are a few of interest:

1. @NASA -  Since joining Twitter in 2007, NASA has produced over 56 000 tweets allowing followers to explore the universe and discover our home planet.

2. @NASA_Astronauts - NASA astronauts tweet from this account and quite often share images while in space.

3. @NASASTEM - This Twitter account has been created with the next generation of explorers in mind and engages them in STEM activities.

  • NASA website: Aside from their main website, www.nasa.gov, which is a platform for all their information, it also links to other pages related to their past, current and future projects and research. Other pages of interest are:

1. NASA STEM engagement: https://www.nasa.gov/stem/, created to immerse students in their work and enhance literacy, and science, technology, engineering and maths

2. NASA kids club: https://www.nasa.gov/kidsclub/index.html, includes engaging space-related activities for younger children

 

Catering to the engaged student

There is no doubt that space science can be an engaging learning area, especially when NASA is involved in so many wonderous initiatives, past and present. Their past achievements, and missions to come, provide much inspiration to all and can encourage children to believe that anything is possible.

At a youth empowerment event in Canada where Hadfield was a keynote speaker, he urged the audience to look at the skills they already have, not the ones they haven’t learnt yet. Remembering what a night in space was like, Hadfield had the following insight:

‘There are, at night, countless billions of stars in the sky, but you can’t always see them shining … you have a light inside of you to achieve anything you believe in, as long as you keep asking the question, what do I do next?’ (shinystars8, 2013)

Inspiration and determination are a powerful combination, and this can be achieved through witnessing a world-changing event such as the first moon landing, or even watching an astronaut’s live video from the ISS. Whatever stimulus inspires them, it’s important for teachers to harness that light inside of their students by informing their science pedagogy and guiding students to deeper understandings and higher-order thinking through science and STEM activities—especially for those who may be asking the question, ‘What do I do next?’

 
Developing higher-order thinking in science

Hadfield remembers his schooling following the moon landing. He participated in ‘… an enrichment program that year and the next, where (they) were taught to think more critically and analytically, to question rather than simply try to get the right answers’ (Hadfield, 2013).

This higher-order thinking promoted in Hadfield’s enrichment program can be linked to Bloom’s taxonomy, a framework created by Benjamin Bloom in 1956 which aimed to promote higher forms of thinking in education—such as analysing and evaluating—rather than just teaching students to remember facts (rote learning).

The hierarchical structure of the taxonomy creates the ability for students to reach higher-order thinking and corresponds well with learning areas, especially science. Levels of the taxonomy begin with the fundamentals of knowledge, comprehension and application and lead to the advanced levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

Image: Bloom’s Taxonomy represented in a pyramid shape, conceptualising the hierarchical nature of the framework. Image source: http://thepeakperformancecenter.com/educational-learning/thinking/blooms-taxonomy/


 

What does higher-order thinking look like in science?

Below is a list of verbs that clarify the hierarchical way of thinking involving students in this process:

  1. Knowledge - know, list, recall, repeat, record, define, locate, memorise, restate, identify
  2. Comprehension - discuss, describe, explain, match, find, reword, review, translate, express, report
  3. Application - display, simulate, apply, demonstrate, practice, operate, compute, present, sketch, use
  4. Analysis - analyse, compare, contrast, probe, inquire, investigate, classify, organize, examine, dissect
  5. Synthesis - compose, invent, develop, construct, create, hyphothesise, predict, speculate, role-play, generalize
  6. Evaluation - judge, infer, evaluate, advise, conclude, consider, determine, recommend

When using these verbs in the structure of a question regarding the content area, it already involves the student thinking at that level in which the verb word appears. Therefore, by asking a student to invent something, we are asking them to perform at the synthesis level of thinking. By asking a student to investigate or inquire is requiring them to think at the analysis level (Curriculum and leadership journal, 2014).

Bloom’s taxonomy is not the only theory or perspective to be applicable to the science learning area. Active learning, metacognition, teaching to multi-learning modalities, and theories such as Gardner’s multiple intelligences, Piaget’s constructivism or Papert’s constructionism are just some to be considered by teachers that are relevant and applicable within the science learning area.


 

The possibilities are endless

Today we live in a world where what once seemed impossible rarely is. With Science Week celebrating more space missions and more science, it is an opportune time to embrace science and STEM in the classroom. It is important to remember that behind all the curriculum, and all the planning, are children like the nine-year-old Hadfield, who have big dreams and aspirations inspired by these momentous achievements and are ready to take science head-on. Teachers are in a privileged position to guide and develop students’ higher-order thinking skills and inspire them to achieve their dreams. As Hadfield said in his keynote speech in 2013 ‘… your curiosity, your eagerness to learn, (is) going to compel your spaceship to achieve whatever dream you let yourself believe in’ (shinystars8, 2013).


 

References (APA 6th)

 

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