Mars Colony Builds 2022

Week of April 25th: This week students began the religion and history part of their project.  They were introduced to architecture and begin creating the pieces that will be turned into their 3D colony.  They are learning about portion and scale.  They are learning to use different art techniques.  How may religion play a role in a new off-world?  How ancient civilizations can help us map how a new civilization may form on a new planet?  Enjoy some updated pictures below.  Ask you student how it's going and what they are learning. 

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The Classroom of Karin Paquin

St. John’s Catholic School, Brunswick Maine

A STREAM Project

You can view this project here: https://sites.google.com/sjcsbme.org/marscolonysjcs2022/home

The MARS COLONY STREAM project is a culmination of the student’s middle school year. This large integration project shows students how each subject can be intertwined in the real world. The project begins about 4 weeks before the mission launch. Students are placed in groups to learn to work together.  I use the group work curriculum created by UL/SCALE at Standford University.  It teaches them how to be group members, provides roles they can play in their groups and provides them weekly tasks to practice being team members. One of the pre-tasks includes creating a group mission patch. These pre-tasks allow students to work out the hiccups of different personalities before beginning the Mars Colony project.

The project launches 7 weeks before the curriculum fair night where they will present their findings, 3D colony, infographics, and more to peers, other students in the school, teachers, parents, and the greater school community. The project includes broken-down tasks which include a pre-planned calendar and countdown timer to help keep them on track. Each group must work together to complete each task. They must work out disagreements and come together to agree on how they are going to accomplish all the tasks on time.

On task one students design a rough draft layout of their colony.   They work through the brainstorming sheets provided on the SIMOC site https://simoc.space/ (SIMOC is a research grade Mars habitat simulation with an elegant web interface.) specifically pages 16-22. This is their second deliverable for the project. The first deliverable is their mission patch. The next tasks depend on their grade level.

The seventh/eighth-graders must complete task two, which is more physics focused and includes creating force diagrams for launching a payload, calculating an estimate of mission costs based on research they do about what it currently takes to ship materials to space. After this, they complete tasks three and four.

The fifth/sixth-grade group moves from Task one directly to Tasks three & four using the sheets provide on the SIMOC site specifically pages 23-31. I give them the choices and have them choose four separate trials of data that they will then evaluate and adjust in the simulation. They know that they must have them pre-approved and that they are running the four simulations as they would any other lab by being sure to not change too many variables all at once. After each simulation run, they must make slight adjustments to their variables to try to improve the outcome. The ability for students to work with the Engineering Design process through The SIMOC Mars habitat simulation brings a whole new level of learning into the classroom. It forces students to think critically and think creatively. It pushes their understanding of life on Earth to a new level while they must consider all the things, they would need on Mars they do not have to think about daily when on Earth.

From here the student’s complete tasks five and six which focus on Religion and History including questions about what makes up a civilization and how could you maintain your faith far from home. This includes deliverables 3 and 4 for the project.  Students got to ask Father Ford questions they had about maintaining faith while traveling.  Questions like Do astronauts receive the sacraments in space?

1. What should they bring to space to maintain their faith?

2. Would a colony on Mars eventually form their own religion?

3. What do Christian astronauts do on Sunday?

4. Does God want us moving to Mars?

5. If you (Fr. Ford) went into space, how would you maintain your faith?

6. Are we as Christians allowed to believe in other life forms?

7. Did God make planets for different reasons, or are they just there?  Do you know of any Catholic astronauts and how they worshiped in space?

8. Are astronauts exempt from receiving holy communion?

9. What are the necessities for making a church/worship place in space?

10. Are astronauts exempt from participating in traditional church holidays, such as Ash Wednesday, or other holiday days of obligation?

11. Is their short service astronauts could perform in space in the absence of a priest?

12. Are astronauts exempt from fasting

Task seven combines an introduction to architectural design (ART class) with the fundamentals of the engineering design process to create a 3D model of the student’s colony design. This is deliverable five for the project and takes between three and four weeks. 

Task eight has students apply what they are learning in the ELA classroom to create infographics and news articles to highlight specific areas of their colony and a reflection of the project to date. These provide deliverables for six and seven for the project.

Task nine takes students into the Physical Education Classroom to train as an astronaut. Including strength, agility, cardio, and endurance.  The activities were sourced from Mission X: Train Like An Astronaut | NASA. 

Finally, Task 10 asks students to create the ultimate musical playlist to bring with them to their colony on Mars. Deliverable eight and the final one for this project

Student comments have included the following:

“It is amazing how every class is incorporated into our project.

“It’s also fun how each person has a job that helps the team.”

“I can see it now how if our living area is too big and our greenhouse, we consume a lot of energy which can cause problems, I think less is more on Mars.”

“The mars colony stem project is amazing. Though some tasks are hard, it is so much fun to figure out how to do them and learn more about space and colonizing Mars.