Term 3 - concept - SPACE

 

We are using the concept of space this term to look at a range of skills and attributes that can help with our learning.

Week 1 - What's out there?

We looked at what we know about space and how we can fnd out. We looked at the importance of
finding trustworthy information - checking that the website or books that we are using are up to date and factual. 

We looked at ways to help us remember facts such as the names and order of the planets. A mnemonic is a good way - a sentence that uses the first letter of each object we are trying to remember.

Eg: My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Noodles

Week 2 - Exploring space - telescopes

How do people know what's out in space? 

We looked at the skills of curiosity and problem solving. The first person to use a telescope to look up
at the night sky was Galileo Galilei. He was sentenced to house arrest as he had different opinions to the church at the time, who taught that the solar system was earth-centric. Gallileo observed that the Earth moved too, and suggested that the planets all orbit the Sun. His curiosity led to discoveries, but also to challenges. 

Problem solving had to be used years later when the Hubble Space telescope was launched and it was found that the primary mirror was the wrong shape so took out of focus photos. People persevered and found a fix for that 3 years
later.  And more problem solving skills needed to be used to come up with ideas to get the much larger James Webb Space Telescope into space. This was achieved by folding the components for launch, and unfolding them after it was in space. 

Week 3 - Space travel

We looked at how competition and collaboration have helped humans to increase their knowledge and ability around space exploration. We looked at how competition helps us to improve, looking at how athletes aim high, work hard, and learn from mistakes in the Olympics. And we looked at how the Space race helped America and Russia to come up with new ideas as they tried to be first in many space travel milestones.

Then we looked at collaboration on the International Space Station and thought about how collaboration can help us to learn and grow ideas too - sharing resources and ideas, learning from and alongside others, supporting each other.