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Backwards - Blog Posts
Kindergarten Habitats & High School Design
Along with returning to my studies I have been visiting classes to talk programming, space and backwards design.
Kindergarteners love hands on work and it's one of the best ways to teach a new concept. During "L" week I challenged students to design a Lunar Habitat. This is apparently really hard to describe to a Kindergartener. After showing pictures of a habitat and making ones out of construction paper the idea clicked after building habitats out of Legos, Bristle Blocks, Tinker Toys and Mega Blocks. The definition best used to describe the Lunar Habitat to Kindergarteners is- "A place where astronauts can live on the Moon without a spacesuit on. It provides resources (like water, air and power) that the moon doesn't have." We also made a Yeti dance on Google's Made With Code website, drew astronaut's EVA suits and ate astronaut ice cream.
Once again high schoolers have been assigned the dreaded toothpick bridge project. I have friends who are therapists and they say this project is a family buster. I visited freshman science classes from my old high schooler to talk about backwards design. I shared how backwards design can help them in their bridge project, real life applications of backwards design while chatting about my NASA projects and admitted what I wish I knew as a freshman. When talking about backwards design I described that the design stage of a project should take the most brain power and more time then expected. Once a design is made you need to think about how much time each stage of production will take, what materials you need and if you learned as much as you can about the project so unknowns are resolved.
Tips for high school freshman I have are...
1) Keep alternate forms of postsecondary education and options in mind like Community College, ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps), Technical Colleges, Study Abroad, Americorps and even taking a year off between high school and college.
2) Take honors classes only if the topic interests you.
3) Find a paid internship to replace you generic summer job (even as a freshman). This way you will be paid to do something meaningful that you are interested in.
4) Network with folks in your community that have your dream job. Ask CEOs, managers and other company leaders if you can shadow them. Ask for a tour of a business that you are interested in.
Although I use lesson plans I write about in previous posts some of the best lessons come from getting off topic. Building the habitats out of materials and talking about freshman advice was totally unplanned but still valuable.
WAYS TO GET INVOLVED
Visit a local classroom to read a book, talk about your career, or ask teacher how you can help out!
Teach programming with drag and drop code: https://www.madewithcode.com/projects/animation
Check out AmeriCorps: http://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/americorps
Check out ROTC: http://www.goarmy.com/rotc.html
Find ways to give back to the community: https://www.volunteermatch.org/