Two articles about the experience are available published in Spanish:
- Mission to Stars: un Proyecto de Investigación alrededor de la astronomía, las misiones espaciales y la investigación científica. Revista Eureka de Enseñanza y Divulgación de las Ciencias, 14 (1), 98–114. Jordi Domènech-Casal, Neus Ruiz-España.
- Resignificación STEM y escuela. Escenas ABP desde el Itinerario Minerva. Boletín Ciencia Tecnología y Sociedad 15, 57-65 (2021). Jordi Domènech-Casal. https://wp.me/p25seH-Tu
Description
Astronomy teaching is usually performed in the frame of our Solar System. This could be a good approach 30 years ago, but the present frames of Astronomy are weel far from it. To prepare our students to understand the news about astronomic research and to adopt positions as citizens to take decisions, even in the frame of political and budgetary priorities, it is important to enlarge their knowledge on Universe.
In this activity, students work in teams that compete with each other to design their own mission, with budgetary and technical limitations. They choose their goals and design a Space Telescope to get the goals. At the end of the activity, students present their projects and the value of the mission is calculated according to budgetary and scientific parameters, selecting the best mission to be accomplished.
Goals
- Understand how astronomic research is done, by participating in the construction of an astronomy research project.
- Learning the main parts an components of the Universe (Andromeda, Orion arm, Milky Way...) and being able to localize them.
- Developing high-order Scientific Skills as experiment designing, planification and scientific communication.
- Measuring distances, calculating scales and units conversion.
- Presenting a project in digital an oral formats.
- Constructing Multimedia representations of astronomic celestial bodies.
- Constructing physical representations of complex objects.
- Working in teams in a collaborative and competitive environment.
- Organizing their own work with the help of a Gantt diagram.