Our Planet Mars is a basic, comprehensive, interdisciplinary program developed for children between 6 and 14 years old. The length of the year on Mars is very similar to the Planets’ Earth: 365 days of 24 hours. Thus, the academic year will resemble the Planets’ Earth academic year starting on September the 15 th and ending on June the 15 th. Our Planet Mars will consist of 10 months in which each of these will be focused on exploring and investigating phenomena happening on Mars as well as develop skills and knowledge that will allow children to contribute to society once they are old enough. The classes will be taught 5 days a week, 8 hour a day. Martian children will be brought together in class-groups separated by age. The groups will be separated by an interval of two years old; 6 & 7, 8 & 9, 10 & 11, 12 & 13, and the 14 years old will make up one group as they are the oldest and they will carry more responsibilities. This program is developed in a way that most of the time children will be learning how to efficiently work together as a group as well as individually. In addition, no predetermined essential skills will be asked to be achieved, rather each kid will be encouraged to grow in their respective areas of interest. That is because this way, these younger generations will be able to find their place in society easier. Educational techniques that worked very well in Scandinavian countries on the planet Earth will be applied to ‘Our Planet Mars’. Additionally, each year the program will be revised and adapted where needed. As you might have seen, our Martian Village is structured in 5 distinct units of 100 people each. You do not have to worry about not having an educational facility on either of those 5 because each unit will contain an educational space for children. Moreover, at the end of the academic year, the last week will be a festive one. That means that during the period of a week children from each unit will be brought together to present their year work as a class. Each year a topic relevant to Mars will be highlighted, especially during the last month of the academic year, all classes as a whole will work on a final deliverable. Each age group will contribute differently to the deliverable, nonetheless, every contribution will be equally assessed and the age difference will be accounted for. An overview of the content that will be taught and how it will be structured is available below.

Individuals going to Mars that also want to have a family might wonder what their future offsprings will be learning about. ‘Our Planet Mars’ will explore different areas of discipline relevant to our Village and to life on Mars. It is important to note that all units and all distinct age groups will be learning about the same focus topics with the main difference that the older children will be expected and required more professional and developed end-products. Additionally, the material will vary from basics to intermediate, to advanced for the oldest. Below an overview of the content per month is available:

Month 1

Our Solar system

Week 1:

• The Sun

Week 2:

• Planets and space

Week 3:

• Mars geography and Mars Weather

Week 4:

• Field trip to NASA

• Group work learned material

Month 2

Human heritage and history

Week 1:

• Evolution

Week 2:

• Earth’s Geography and Earth’s Weather

Week 3:

• Earth’s fauna and flora

Week 4:

• Field trip to the Flora area!

• Group work learned material

Month 3

Physics

Week 1:

• Newton and gravity

Week 2:

• Light

Week 3:

• Thermodynamics

Week 4:

• Field trip to the General Research Lab!

• Group work learned material

Month 4

Chemistry

Week 1:

• Chemical reactions

Week 2:

• Atomic structure

Week 3:

• Periodic table

Week 4:

• Field trip to the General Research Lab!

• Group work learned material!

Month 5

Biology

Week 1:

• The human body

Week 2:

• Genetics

Week 3:

• Disease, bacteria and virus

Week 4:

• Field trip to the Medical Research Lab!

• Group work learned material

Month 6

Mathematics

Week 1:

• Numbers and operations

Week 2:

• Geometry

Week 3:

• Measurement

Week 4:

• Field trip to the Park! (geometry and measurement experiments)

• Group work learned material

Month 7

Ethics, philosophy and psychology

Week 1:

• Good and bad; action-consequence

Week 2:

• Who am I?

Week 3:

• Psychology; stress

Week 4:

• Field trip to the sports Hall!

• Group work learned material

Month 8

Society and sustainability

Week 1:

• Leadership and crisis

Week 2:

• The importance of being sustainable

Week 3:

• Our future

Week 4:

• Field trip to the Village Hall!

• Group work learned material!

Month 9

The Martian Village

Week 1:

• Crops growth and food

Week 2:

• Medical plants and infirmary

Week 3:

• Architecture and technology

Week 4:

• Field trip to the Infirmary and IT!

• Group work learned material!

Month 10

Creative month

Week 1:

• What did we learn & What interests did we gain?

• Class decision 2 additional field trips!

Week 2:

• Group work

Week 3:

• Group work

Week 4:

• Feedback and changes; Group work

• Deliverables

Our Planet Mars focuses on the individual interest and development of children, aiming for growth in a specific area of interest. Thus, the main learning objective is to develop a specific interest in an area of discipline. Teachers will monitor the development and improvement during the academic year by assessing the group work every 4th week of the month, individually and as a group. This assessment will account for the coherence, rationale, and understanding of each month’s topic. Additionally, the end deliverable is where every kid will be able to work specifically, with other children that share the same enthusiasm, on their respective areas of interest. When a kid does not meet enough requirements to be assessed, careful discussion with him or her, to understand what went wrong and what can be done, will be made. The main teaching is student-driven and the main strategies are by trying to appeal to children’s different personalities and abilities. Classes will be mostly interactive where the teacher adopts an active listener role. Teachers in Our Planet Mars are a tool for the children to reach their goals and peer teaching will be encouraged. Constructive feedback will be very much prioritized and the main teaching strategies will be:

• Visualization: learning by displaying pictures, audios, and videos. Moreover, local field trips and classroom experiments will be made monthly (helping students to understand how their schooling applies in the real-world)

• Cooperative learning: Encourage students of mixed abilities to work together by promoting small group or whole class activities (Encourage students of mixed abilities to work together by promoting small group or whole class activities. Through verbally expressing their ideas and responding to others your students will develop their self-confidence, as well as enhance their communication and critical thinking skills which are vital throughout life)

• Inquiry-based instruction: Encouraging students to ask questions and investigate their own ideas helps improve their problem-solving skills as well as gain a deeper understanding of academic concepts

• Differentiation: Differentiate our teaching by allocating tasks based on students’ abilities, to ensure no one gets left behind

• Behaviour management: Implementing an effective behaviour management strategy is crucial to gain your students respect and ensure students have an equal chance of reaching their full potential. Noisy, disruptive classrooms do no encourage a productive learning environment, therefore developing an atmosphere of mutual respect through a combination of discipline and reward can be beneficial for both the teacher and the students (Examples include fun and interactive reward charts for younger students, where individuals move up or down based on behaviour with the top student receiving a prize at the end of the week. ‘Golden time’ can also work for students of all ages, with a choice of various activities such as games or no homework in reward for their hard work)

All children will be examined every 4th week of each month. No grades will be assigned, rather, each kid will be examined individually via a short meeting with their respective teachers. Our Planet Mars has implemented a lot of Scandinavian techniques that worked very well on Earth. These include free development and growth in each children’s area of interest, thus when kid’s are examined teachers will account for consistency, focus improvement, and behavior management. Children will not be assessed on how well they did content-wise nor what they remember form each month’s topic, rather, we want to see if an interest emerged and if the children are consistent, enthusiastic, and motivated with it. This way children’s only requirement is to develop as an intellectual individually on their respective areas of interest. Moreover, at the end of the academic year, the last week will be the festive week. Here, children, all ages will be brought together to create a final deliverable highlighting that year’s focus topic. A Focus topic is a phenomenon happening relevant to a thriving society. Each year 3 topics will be suggested and through consensus, every unit will choose their focus topic. For a month children from distinct ages will be put in groups. Groups will be formed by areas of interest studied during the year and all children will work towards a common goal, but how they reach there is up to them.

In Our Planet Mars system, there is no homework, and schoolwork is done during class time.