For our first outreach event, the UASEDS Microgravity team visited Liberty High School in Peoria, Arizona on April 21, 2011. The plan was to visit a science classroom, give a presentation, and facilitate a few activities for three classes of about 25 students each.
The presentation given was entitled "Why Space?" By focusing on past, present, and future NASA exploration, the presentation makes claims for why people should care about space and how NASA benefits our everyday lives. We also discussed our microgravity project to show the students the kinds of opportunities available to them in college.
Our first activity focused on stressing the importance of communication within teams. We had the students pair up. One student was given a space-related item written down on a card. That student was required to have their teammate draw that item only using directional instructions and shapes (left/ right, top/ bottom, circle, square, etc). Most of the students were able to complete the activity rather successfully, but some cases demonstrated some miscommunications. We discussed the outcomes with each class and emphasized the importance of clear and concise communication when working in groups.
Our second activity was called "Engineering Management." This activity involved giving groups of 5-7 students a bag of materials like wood shims, metal brackets, nuts & bolts, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, and clothespins. Using these materials, the students were instructed to begin by making a structure capable of supporting a three pound weight about the size of a fist. Throughout the activity, certain engineering-related events occured: the power went out (shutting off the class room lights), certain team members fell ill (individual not able to help the team for five minutes), product recalls occurred (students had to give up certain items), and communications systems broke down (students had to work in silence). As a final twist, with ten minutes remaining, the students were told that their "bosses" changed their mind - instead of building a structure to support a weight, they wanted the tallest tower to be built.
This activity teaches students what it is like to work in an engineering environment, such as NASA, although maybe on an extreme scale. Students learned the importance of being flexible and understanding that things may not always go as planned. All the students we worked with appeared to enjoy the activity and took it seriously.
Through this outreach event, we were able to reach out to about 80 students and teach them the importance of space exploration and the engineering behind it all. We plan to participate in more activities such as this one in the future.
You can view our "Why Space?" presentation below: