What was the mission or aim of your project?   

We aimed to research the vision issues that occur when traveling to Mars. If we were to travel to Mars, we need to acknowledge and be aware of the vision issues that'll happen. Shedding light on this problem will help people prioritize our health and find ways to preserve it in space before starting the journey of life on Mars.   

Why was this you mission?

Since vision is something under-looked. Injuries to the eye can lead to pain and other symptoms, but even though its something so serious but never properly spoken about. Its our mission to bring topics that have such a big impact to light.

What action/experiment did you take?

We did a research lab about the human eye and how it could exactly affect the eye when we go to space. We did a research and inferred what possibly could have happened next, once we had our questions we did our research to find the answers.

How did you use what you learned in grade 9 science in the design?

Although we didn't design anything for our project since it was a research lab, we did use some skills that we've learned in grade 9 science which is problem-solving, and collaborating. As we prepared to make our design we came across a block in ideas, we couldn't come up with an idea for our design. However, after brainstorming with each other we tried to think of things that share similarities to the anatomy of the eye, afterwards we found that a balloon is something fitting. Collaborating, since we each have distinctive styles of doing things we had to come to an agreement on who would do what.

How does your project fit or connect with the other projects in the class?  Are we living sustainably on your chosen planet.

Our project is different, it isn't like the other projects. We made our project into a research lab where we show how our eyes become affected by space and a lack of gravity on the eye models we have. Compared to the other projects ours relies more on research rather than retesting an experiment to see the results. 

How successful was your action (its OK if it didn't go as planned)?  Did you meet your goal?

It was successful because we found a lot of answers to our question (what happens to the eyes when travelling to space?). With our research we found out a lot of health issues regarding vision during the travel journeys/durations in space. Although we decided to go with eye health in space, we initially thought of doing something with mental health since thats disregarded the majority of the time. However, with that issue we couldn't successfully come up with anything innovative to be worth the topic of a project . 

What contributed to your groups success (or lack of success)?

Working at home helped my group catch up in places where we were behind. Thankfully after working at home on our slides, experiment, and script at home we were able to add a good amount of detail and finish the same time as everyone else. When we found ourselves behind in certain areas, the next day we tried our best to finish incomplete work. 

What would you do differently if you could?

I believe if we had more time we would've made a better model that was more realistic to the eye anatomy, because our current model of the human eye is inaccurate and the parts are indistinguishable. In addition,  when one of the members were away we were a behind on the work compared to everyone else in our group and class but thankfully with a little work at home and hard work we got everything finished. 

Pitch a next phase for your project.

A next phase for our project would be a presentation. It would be great to present our research in-front the class and be able to share everything we've learned! Im sure there are a lot of people who are unaware of the various vision issues just like we were, so we would love to inform the class. 

Inspire a future group of students to pick up where you left off.

As simple as it is, even if something seems hard at first if you really try your best you'll understand it. Still, If you think too hard then nothing will result of it, instead just brainstorm and the idea will come eventually. 

Why is this an important cause?  Why should they continue with it?

Health is something you cannot buy, for that reason we should always take care of it. Before thinking of big things like traveling to mars and living in mars we should also think of our health, to enjoy the new life on mars we need to prioritize our treasurable and indispensable health.

Where would you like to see it go next.

A next step would be seeing a eye vision issue occurring. Although vision issues like cataracts don't happen in 1 minute, its interesting to see the process leading to the disease. For example, cataracts is when proteins/ fibers break down in the lens causing a cloudy area to appear in the eyes lens. This process can be replicated by a thin clear hollow plastic (lens) being slowly filled with a cloudy like liquid to show how it happens. This model lens would be attached to the other parts of the human eye so making an accurate eye model would be a good next step.

Each member of the group should reflect on what they learned.  You may have learned some neat stuff about science, but you also learned some other great skills like time management, goal setting, collaboration, and problem solving.

Dina - I've learned about organization and how to work efficiently during class. Even though we were behind when comparing our work with our other groups experiments but we still were able to finish just in time because we focused on working in class instead of talking and wasting time. Me and Rawane collaborated and helped each other with things we had trouble with. We talked about our projected and shared our opinions on each area and when making our models we did it together, rather than only one person doing it.

Rawane- During the space camp work periods I've learned that the eyes go through many changes or acquire issues when there's a lower gravitational pull and uv radiation. I didn't immediately know this knowledge, to get to this step i had to research and collaborate using class time efficiently. At first, I found it challenging to correlate health to Mars but with further communication with my partner ( Dina), we brainstormed a couple ideas still we still couldn't agree on anything yet. At last, using the problem solving skills I obtained in grade 9 science we concluded with eye health.  Ive also learned that when collaborating with people, you get to share ideas and then come up with better things then one would do individually. Before the space camp project, I had little to no knowledge on eye issues in space so the information was something new to me since i never thought that astronauts got vision issues, i realized this wasn't talked about enough.