In a world where access to information is at our fingertips every day, it is our responsibility as humans to unlayer the many moving pieces of what is being presented. When we value the process of a particular story or situation we tend to become our own researchers, we question and discover to better understand the “whole” of the story/information. Through our work as researchers, we will realize that the outcome of a story/situation is dependent upon the interactions and interconnectedness of ideas, solutions, and personal expertise/knowledge that is required in order to solve, explain, or provoke change in how we think and interact with one another. When we consider these multiple lenses and we spend time at the intersection of our human and natural world considering relationships and cause/effect, we discover this overlap is necessary for change and necessary for survival.

This experience will have the participant engage as a student to undergo a hands on approach to completing a project while providing time and space to reflect from the teacher mindset. Part of this work will be understanding how to create an authentic project, meet experts in the fields of the project, and hear from the teachers who have completed this project as well. Specifically, this project will link them to people at NASA and explorers and survivalists along with others experts as we undergo the four days of learning.

This Deep Dive will provide training on how to use project based learning to develop authentic learning experiences in the classroom. In particular particpants will explore the elements of project based learning, be trained in SCRUM as a management tool, and then undergo the actual process of a doing a project becase as Jeff Robin always states, "You have to do the project first!"

This experience will challenge participants to use skills and materials that they may not have used before. This deep dive will have them think through their work in a new lens that will lead to action back in their schools. Additionally, with a constraint of materials, participants will have to work together and collaboratively to create an interactive lunar colony for long term living on the moon such as NASA is figuring out now with the Artemis Project. Participants will be working collaboratively to not only design and build their products, but to also reflect deeply at the end about how the process can be applied in their classrooms to meet their standards and academic requirements.

Participants will have to think critically to understand how computer science and physical computing can be layered into any key content area and how computational thinking should play a role in all learning areas. This will push our academic mindsets to explore our classrooms through a different lens.

Finally, as Alvin Toffler states, "The illiterate of the 21st Century are not those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn." This experience of exploration of coding, making, building, and tinkering, participants will have to not only learn, but unlearn and relearn how all the essential learning elements go together to create new learning experiences.