Purpose
The Mission: Colonize Mars is a 4-Week unit designed to lead students to delve into cutting-edge research and design a building suitable for the colonization of Mars. Students will work in teams and learn about circuits, making building blueprints, and integrate the two to build a working model of their building. Each team will also research information on Mars, getting materials into space, and energy sources. The project will culminate in a presentation of their model building with working circuit and explaining their research and their building and energy proposal.
What is Project Based Instruction?
According to Krajcik and Blumenfeld (2006), Project Based Instruction (PBI) has 5 essential elements:
Why PBI?
There is a substantial body of research indicating students are bored in school and acquire knowledge only at a superficial level. Project-based learning seeks to solve these areas by increasing student engagement through doing and applying ideas, by engaging in real-world activities that are similar to the activities that adult professional engage in. Research shows that when students engage in real, meaningful problems that are important to them and emulate what experts do in real-world situations - they are more invested and gain a deeper understanding of the material. (Krajcik and Blumenfeld 2006).
How This Unit is PBI
This unit contains each of the 5 essential elements of PBI.
Why This Project Is Meaningful
Space exploration and colonization is exploding. NASA and Russia used to be the only ones capable of sending people to outer-space; now, countries such as India and even private companies (Such as those led by Elon Musk) are paving the way for colonizing Mars. All this within 60 years of space exploration.
Degradation of the planet, wars over limited resources, establishing an outpost for humanity's survival - all of these drive what is known as space colonization.
Space colonization is a field that has no 'real' answers yet, a field that is currently undergoing extensive research, a frontier. All of this leads to an exciting, real-life scenario that both affects and engages all students.
Equitable Instruction
Not all students know the rules of classroom discourse. There will be explicit instruction of rules on classroom behavior and discourse rather than assuming students already possess this knowledge (Lee and Buxton 2010)
Explicit instruction of classroom content will also be done. Not only does it help students bridge competing sets of values and practices, it also provides opportunities for the transition from teacher-directed to student-initiated inquiry practices (Lee and Buxton 2010)
Recommendations for Accommodations
ELL students (from Marx-Talarczyk)
Citations:
1. Clark, D., & Uhry, J., (Eds.) (2004). Dyslexia: Theory and practice of instruction (3rd ed.). Austin: Pro-Ed.
2. Krajcik, J., & Blumenfeld, P. (2006). Project-Based Learning. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), The
Cambridge handbook of the Learning Sciences (pp. 317-333). New York: Cambridge Press
3. Lee and Buxton (2010). Science Instruction and Student Diversity. Diversity and Equity in Science
Education: Research, Policy and Practice. Teacher’s College Press.
4. Marx-Talarczyk, J. (n.d.). Five Strategies to Use with English Language Learners. Inside the School.
The Mission: Colonize Mars is a 4-Week unit designed to lead students to delve into cutting-edge research and design a building suitable for the colonization of Mars. Students will work in teams and learn about circuits, making building blueprints, and integrate the two to build a working model of their building. Each team will also research information on Mars, getting materials into space, and energy sources. The project will culminate in a presentation of their model building with working circuit and explaining their research and their building and energy proposal.
What is Project Based Instruction?
According to Krajcik and Blumenfeld (2006), Project Based Instruction (PBI) has 5 essential elements:
- Driving Question
- Situated Inquiry
- Collaboration
- Technology
- Artifacts
Why PBI?
There is a substantial body of research indicating students are bored in school and acquire knowledge only at a superficial level. Project-based learning seeks to solve these areas by increasing student engagement through doing and applying ideas, by engaging in real-world activities that are similar to the activities that adult professional engage in. Research shows that when students engage in real, meaningful problems that are important to them and emulate what experts do in real-world situations - they are more invested and gain a deeper understanding of the material. (Krajcik and Blumenfeld 2006).
How This Unit is PBI
This unit contains each of the 5 essential elements of PBI.
- Driving Question: This unit's driving question is "What is the best building for the colonization of Mars?". This question involves multiple layers - circuits, materials, location, energy, and more questions - all these factors and more have to be considered.
- Situated Inquiry: Students will be learning about circuits in context of building an electrical circuit for buildings.
- Collaboration: This project is all about working together as a team to accomplish the team's goals. Each team will also work with other teams in the form of giving and receiving feedback.
- Technology: Research, a lot of it, will be conducted through the computer. Multi-meters will be employed.
- Artifact: The artifact created will be the integrated model building and electric circuit. A presentation will also be made.
Why This Project Is Meaningful
Space exploration and colonization is exploding. NASA and Russia used to be the only ones capable of sending people to outer-space; now, countries such as India and even private companies (Such as those led by Elon Musk) are paving the way for colonizing Mars. All this within 60 years of space exploration.
Degradation of the planet, wars over limited resources, establishing an outpost for humanity's survival - all of these drive what is known as space colonization.
Space colonization is a field that has no 'real' answers yet, a field that is currently undergoing extensive research, a frontier. All of this leads to an exciting, real-life scenario that both affects and engages all students.
Equitable Instruction
Not all students know the rules of classroom discourse. There will be explicit instruction of rules on classroom behavior and discourse rather than assuming students already possess this knowledge (Lee and Buxton 2010)
Explicit instruction of classroom content will also be done. Not only does it help students bridge competing sets of values and practices, it also provides opportunities for the transition from teacher-directed to student-initiated inquiry practices (Lee and Buxton 2010)
Recommendations for Accommodations
ELL students (from Marx-Talarczyk)
- Appropriate Amount of Wait Time
- Opportunities to Practice Speaking
- Review and Practice Concepts
- Reteach and review previously taught concepts and build on and connect background knowledge
- Maximize student engagement
- "Direct, intensive, and systematic input from, and interaction with, the teacher"
- "Immediate feedback from the teacher"
Citations:
1. Clark, D., & Uhry, J., (Eds.) (2004). Dyslexia: Theory and practice of instruction (3rd ed.). Austin: Pro-Ed.
2. Krajcik, J., & Blumenfeld, P. (2006). Project-Based Learning. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), The
Cambridge handbook of the Learning Sciences (pp. 317-333). New York: Cambridge Press
3. Lee and Buxton (2010). Science Instruction and Student Diversity. Diversity and Equity in Science
Education: Research, Policy and Practice. Teacher’s College Press.
4. Marx-Talarczyk, J. (n.d.). Five Strategies to Use with English Language Learners. Inside the School.