To the Moon and Back

“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”

President John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961, speech to Congress.

As I sat with my students, I thought back to JFK’s historic challenge to the American people issued over fifty years ago.  We were getting ready to undertake a simulated space mission in one of the Challenger Learning Centers at a space and science center near us.  My class listened to the mission briefing about their upcoming trip to Mars, excited and a bit nervous. 

At their age, my classmates and I sat by one of the few television sets in our rural school watching the launch of Alan Shepard’s Mercury flight.  The challenge of putting a person in space was a huge technological effort, requiring advances in science, engineering, and project management, as well as human organization – an ideal STEM task.

Our students were told that they would take turns having a role on a rocket flight to Mars and on the Mar station mission control team.  Both the flight team and mission control were further divided into different teams, such as navigation, life support, communication, life science research, geological research, and medical.  Each team member worked with counterparts on Mars or on the rocket to solve realistic problems such as navigating the craft, repairing rocket life support systems, and determining what foods might be grown on Mars.  To do this, they used both their background knowledge in science and math, as well as some just-in-time learning from digital or print resources needed to complete their mission or to fix a problem.

One of the key takeaways for me was how the space simulation combined multiple levels of teaming, with individuals also making key contributions. Whether they were on the Mars station flight control or the Mars rocket, they needed to cooperate with everyone else in that room to accomplish their goal. They also needed to cooperate with their specialist team. Finally, the whole grade cooperated for the success of the overall mission. This type of simulation feels very much like the work of the future.