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 Lesson Plan 6: Preparing for Mission Day

Introduction
Students will run an activity called a “mini-mission” to prepare for mission day. During the mini-mission students will practice with the same online tools used for the actual mission and will learn how to select a flight path, calculate fuel consumption, measure site areas, and calculate hematite levels for each site they choose to visit. By completing this activity, your students will gain experience with the online tools and will be oriented to the flow of information that takes place during the mission.

Recommended Preparation

  • Assign roles to your students. Each student should be a navigation or science/operations expert for the mini-mission. Do not assign the communications roles yet because these students will not require much time to prepare. Instead, wait until the day before the mission and select two students per team to act as communicators. Give these students the communications instructions and ask them to read them for homework. Preferably your communicators will be students who can type without having to look at the keys.

  • For homework before this class, students should read:

    • Overview of Teams.

    • The instructions for their assigned roles.

Duration

10-15 minutes: Organize the students into teams and give directions.

30-35 minutes: Run the mini-mission.

Materials Needed

  • One computer for each team with the mini-mission navigation tool displayed. You can find a link to this tool at the Pre-mission Preparation web page.

  • One computer for each team with the mini-mission science/operations tool displayed. You can find a link to this tool at the Pre-mission Preparation web page.

  • A navigation and science/operations report form for each team. You can download the printable version of these forms under the Student Materials section of the web site.

  • Tool tutorials for the navigation and science operations experts. Be sure to make enough copies so that each student can have his or her own copy. These tutorials are available under the Student Materials section of the web site.

  • Pencils.

Set up Classroom and Assign Roles

  1. Organize your students following the Classroom Setup directions. For the mini-mission you will need two computers per team. These computers will be used by the navigation and science/operations experts for each team. 

  2. Students may self-organize and choose one of the roles listed. Alternatively, you may want to make assignments.

Procedure

  1. At the start of the mini-mission, the navigation experts from each team will compare three sites. They will use the navigation expert tool tutorial to walk them through this process. 

  2. While the science/operations experts are waiting to receive the first site selection information from the navigation experts on their team, they will perform an equipment check. The science/operations tool tutorial (found online) will walk them through this process.

  3. When the navigation experts have selected the first site they would like to visit, they will record the information on their report form and tell the science/operations experts on their team of their selection. On mission day the navigation experts will pass this form to the communications experts, who will relay it to mission control.   

  4. The science/operations experts will collect data on the site and will give the site a rating, 1 being the best rating, and 3 being the worst. They will base their rating for each site on the following criteria:

    • The site should have an area of at least 10 square kilometers.

    • The site should contain as much hematite as possible.

    The science/operations experts should record the data and their ratings on their science/operations report form. On mission day the navigation experts will pass this form to the communications experts, who will relay it to mission control.  

  5. As soon as the navigation experts have delivered their site selection information to the science/operations experts, they will begin the site selection process again, starting from the last site they selected.

  6. Students will continue this process until they have exhausted their fuel supply or have run out of sites to visit.

Homework
All students should review the Overview of Teams and study their individual team’s instructions.

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The Center for Educational Technologies® at WJU has developed a series of innovative programs for digital learning. These programs provide teachers with an all-inclusive package comprised of curriculum aligned with state and national standards and a live “mission” via technology. The programs were designed around best practice models and principles derived from the latest educational research.

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