Following the launch of Space X and Soyuz to the International Space Station and the increasingly likely tourism trips to space, there is a whirlwind of excitement around space exploration. Ranging from producing audio soundscapes to modeling antigravity sculptures, students from Year Six to Year 9 have been participating in various challenges related to the theme of our MIT Challenge: Living in Space.
As MIT (Massachusetts Institute for Technology) researchers look towards a future of space homes and interplanetary travel, they are not only thinking of science experiments and exploration. They are also thinking about quality of life, and bringing the comforts of home to outer space.
How do you exercise in space and why is it important? Why can’t you eat bread in space? What is the overall cost of a launch? These are just some of the questions that students’ inquisitive minds have been asking. All students have also had the opportunity to delve deeper and have enjoyed learning through an interdisciplinary approach to the theme.
For example, in Upper Primary, students have been fully immersed in an astronaut training programme. As part of their programme they were required to calculate the circumference of different planets, the distance from the sun and create a maze to navigate a robot through.
Whilst building towers, Mars landers and attempting the MakeyMakey Photobooth Challenge, as well as many other other skills, teamwork has been an essential aspect of this week. To finish the week, students completed the MIT Challenge: “Design an object to be used on the International Space Station to improve the human experience away from Earth” and shared their ideas on Global Campus, a global Nord Anglia community of over 60,000 students.
It has been an unforgettable week!
Written by Carly Wilding-Reid, Science Teacher
