One of our tasks this week was to design a team patch. Our teammate Vivian is an awesome artist and created ours. We had eight countries represented on Team Harmony so we knew it needed to represent each of those and the fact that we are all teachers. So this is what we came up with:
Today we spent a lot of time in the classroom doing problem solving, team lessons. This morning's session was experimenting with ablative shielding. As spacecraft reentry our atmosphere, they must withstand 3000 degree temperatures so they must be able to withstand this temperature for three minutes. On the Gemini and Apollo missions, the ships had ablative shielding on the bottom side which worked to dissipate and reflect. As the shielding heated up, it would peel off and in peeling off it would take some of the heat with it. In the shuttle missions, the tiles were meant to absorb the heat. Our task was to build a shield for less than $100 (materials had a cost for each) and use it to protect an egg for 3 minutes from a blowtorch. My team's egg survived! While I can't see bringing this exact lesson back to my classroom, I loved how our instructors didn't spend a whole lot of time front-loading the lesson. While I found it a little frustrating to not know what each type of materials' intended purpose was or any idea of how it would perform under fire, it was a true lesson based on inquiry, hypothesizing, and testing. I only wish we could have had a second chance based on our findings from the first round.
Next up was a quick trip to the moon. We suited up to complete our Lunar Mission. Without too much complication, we successfully left and returned to Earth with the correct human cargo. And we even had some fun in the process! I kind of liked being in charge of the Orion spacecraft and having to find all the right buttons and switches at the right time. We were told that the new Orion ships have even less buttons and switches (60 to be exact) than we do as everything is becoming more and more computer-based. The Orion capsules are being built to potentially go to Mars at some point. NASA is planning the first flight on Orion in 2021.
After lunch, we participated in the Eggs-Prize (a play on the X Prize which is a commercial competition to get a spacecraft into outer space.) Team Harmony and Team Kibo competed against each other to create a Mars rover to fit inside a landing craft which could drop from the sky and exit the craft and roll out onto the planet. Did I mention there was another egg that had to survive? We had a budget and performance goals as part of our point system for winning. Team Harmony won! Our third grade team of teachers at Werner have the kids do an egg-drop experiment with the kids. I can't wait to get home and explore with them how we might incorporate a space-theme and adding a rover to their drop. I like how the set-up for this experiment gave us a reason for doing the egg drop (building and testing a landing module for space exploration) and not just the simple goal of saving an egg. I can see the kids buying into the experience more if they have a context/story to go along with the building.
Our last official Space Camp activity for the day was to shoot off our rockets. It was the first time I have ever had a chance to create a rocket and shoot it off. Unfortunately, my rocket landed in a tree so it is going to stay at Space Camp forever!
We did end our day a little earlier than usual so a huge group of Space Campers headed over to a local bar to enjoy an evening of karaoke. I won't torture you with videos of that but suffice to say that we all had fun singing every space, moon, and rocket song we could come up with!
We did end our day a little earlier than usual so a huge group of Space Campers headed over to a local bar to enjoy an evening of karaoke. I won't torture you with videos of that but suffice to say that we all had fun singing every space, moon, and rocket song we could come up with!