 I'm Mrs. Herron from Inman Elementary School. One of the most exciting things to me about the Curiosity rover landing on Mars this August is its representation of the progress, the innovation, and curiosity happening every day, both in our world and beyond. Watching many of the old sci-fi movie concepts come to life in applicable inventions and advancement is not only exciting, but an astounding statement to what the future may hold. To me, the incredible thing about all of this is knowing that it's the imagination and the creativity of all ages, both young and old, coming to life. How does this apply to the students and to learning? Well, to me, it's about developing that curriculum that integrates their knowledge, their learning, and their application of it in a flexible, safe-to-explore environment. This is not an environment that focuses on one tool, a textbook, technology, or a strategy, but instead it implements all of those and any and all resources to meet the needs of the activity and the creativity and the challenges and the diversity of each student, allowing them to explore to their maximum potential. To introduce my students to this kind of learning environment each year, I begin with a project that simply states its end goal, indulging my students into deeper thinking and creating through trial and error as they learn that success comes in the mistakes and the continual re-innovation, pushing them to create something better than they did the day before. It's those aha moments of seeing the next part of a bigger picture once they have conquered the challenge at hand. The timing of the Mars Curiosity could not have been better as it landed as the school year began. We began to follow the Curiosity rover and its accomplishments and its challenges in class each day. Just what kind of challenges could there be for a rover named Curiosity to meet with and to deal with as it traveled to space? After all, it's just space, right? That was the questions that my students quickly started to ask and this led them to investigating what is an asteroid, what's meteors, what are comets, what are sunflowers, there's radiation, what's that? And so those projects and those research questions were asked and they ended up creating different projects and presentations to show what they learned and that they understood what those things were. They were quickly able to put those into the application with the Mars rover and understand the different problems the scientists in NASA had to deal with just to get Curiosity from here to Mars in the eight months. Before long, Curiosity was premiering its first time recorded hits and becoming the mayor of Mars on Foursquare while students were bringing in their information and everything that they were learning in their own time, researching at home, watching the news, finding out new things about them. They were intrigued with what was happening and what it might mean for their future as we learn more about Mars and space. This easily lent itself into a great project to start the year off with. So what do I, the teacher do to develop a project that lends itself to this kind of learning? As with any project, there are several different ways to approach this. In this case, my approach was to establish the content and skills that I wanted the students to make sure that they knew and I simply wrote a mission statement and set a few integral steps that would serve as a guide for the students. I began by using Google Docs, creating the mission packet. This included the mission goal statement, important vocabulary that we will be using throughout the year, and steps to complete the project and share it with the students. Now on creating this document, I am conscious to keep the questions and steps open-ended for interpretation, allowing opportunity for students' creativity and imagination. The students quickly became engineers, designing and creating their rovers using the scientific process. They learned what mass was by measuring and experimenting with the effects it had on how their rover moved or maybe did not move. The requirement that it was to be propelled by a rubber band created some remarkable questions and experimentation before they discovered just how to use potential and kinetic energy to their advantage. Soon after, friction and gravity were a force to deal with as they willed their rovers to decelerate in the air before landing and exhilarating on land. Measurement after measurement, test after test, data was recorded each step of the way, testing their mass skills as they went. And just when they thought they were ready to launch, they discovered that weather played an important role in their mission. After researching weather forecasts, evaluating and debating, they had a launch date and after two weather delays, the launch was a go. As preparations were made and interviews were conducted, students were excited to find out if all their hard work and preparation would pay off. Was their hypothesis right? Would their design work? Would their rover survive the five meter landing and then travel the required three to five meters without breaking their raw egg payload? They were about to find out as the launch began. Two, one. As they say on MythBusters, it's not science unless it's written down. Upon landing, students quickly began to investigate the landing sites and collect data and record it on their data sheets for further analysis. As is true in all things, global communication and evaluation is a feat. After launching their rovers, students set out to evaluate their own level of success, deliberating on just what does it take to be successful? Quickly they learned that success comes through mistakes and re-innovation, the continuous push to improve without the option of quitting. To reflect upon their mission, students became reporters and created newscasts to share with the world their successes. The challenge of displaying their learning through mistakes in a positive light was a lesson in itself. After watching several online news reports, the class concluded that how viewers perceived the mission, whether it was a success or failure, is all in how the story is presented. Soon, scripts were written, photos and videos were edited, and students were creating their very own mission newscast through the eyes of a reporter. Let's check some out. Mars rover featuring Ernie. This is Ernie's test drive about a week before our rover launch. On a scale of one to 10, how do you think your rover is gonna do? Point two. Okay. How is your rover rubber band powered? Okay. How is your unique from everybody? The hypothesis of the rover was that they'd be able to build the body out of cardboard, put two screws inside the cardboard, put the wheels and the axles on, put the rubber band on the axles, twist back the axles, and hope it moves. This is a picture of Ernie before the rover launch. And this is a picture of Ernie after the rover launch. Ernie lost his wheel. It wasn't the cleanest landing. They didn't execute everything they wanted to, but the milk carton came in handy. It did its part in protecting the egg along with the stuffed cotton balls inside of it. The end. We're proud of you, Ernie. Tonight we joined two rover engineers from M&L elementary school as they build their rover side by side. They had to build a rover that not only had dropped from five meters, but also had to accelerate to travel the length of three to five meters. And they had two weeks to complete this task. These two students had high hopes for their rover, but I don't think their rover quite met their ambitions. When they launched their rover, it dropped from five meters, but you wouldn't quite call it the smoothest landing ever. And it didn't, and it only went about three to five centimeters. Upon observing the crash site, the designers found their mistakes, noting that their strings to the parachute had been cut unevenly. And that led to the rover's crash landing. Well, that's all for tonight, folks. Sign off in sixth grade M&L elementary school with hopes of future rover exploration. Thank you and good night. In elementary school, the sixth grade class held the first ever rover launch in Inman. It was a fantastic learning experience. They all made a hypothesis about what they thought was going to happen with their rover. They were hoping the rover would survive at the high fall from five meters and then drive three to five meters. Being powered by rubber bands, most of the rovers crashed and burned, but one of the rovers did good. It went 12 centimeters forward. These two engineers built a rover to survive a drop. The rover landed on its wheels, but fell out of the lander and did a flip. Their rover was made out of a styrofoam cup and a rubber band in Canucks. The sixth grade years of IAS have been making rovers based off of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity. They have been working hard to make their deadline. These students have been working together as a team. We met a team who are making these, their rover they call Rovet. We asked the team what they were working on. They say we are making a rubber band powered rover. We are supposed to make the rubber band powered. Also we have to make sure that when we drop it from five meters that an egg will not break on the way down. Also we have to make sure the rover will once go, once it touches the ground without us touching it. After two hard working rakes, the launching was finally here. The team was up and the partners were ready. The rovers were set and the countdown started. Five, four, three, two, one. The parachute got caught on the person's arms and what happened was the other person let go while it was still caught. We talked to the team about their launch asking what went wrong. They said our rover did not work because of the wind and the parachute got caught on my partner's arms. And we did not have a six-week at our launch. Well, the team is now working on making it work for next time with plans to make the wheels better and more sturdy. And for us to make the rubber band powered more strong and so close to the wheels. So the wheels will not get caught. This is an Exclusives Report by your IES Reporter. Thanks for listening. Good evening ladies and gentlemen on IES News. Tonight we will talk about the famous worldwide Rosie the Rover. Two engineers who built Rosie were amazingly awesome engineers, but they had to follow these rules of steps. The rover cannot weigh more than 300 grams with the raw egg payload. Be rubber band powered and had to move three to five meters. With a two-week deadline, the two engineers had to follow the rules and did what it takes to get the rover to be done. On a scale of one to 10, how great is your rover? I'd say about five. OK, what was the easiest thing about your rover? OK, what was the hardest? OK, how was your rubber band powered? OK, how was yours unique? Is that it? OK, well good luck. Launch day came. Rosie was ready to fly, but apparently not ready to move. She was decelerated. As she decelerated, the weight shifted to one side and causing her to flip and eject the egg before crashing into the ground. After inspecting the crash, landing and engineers and the engineers discovered the importance of balancing the weight accurately and evenly. That is all tonight about the two famous engineers. This project has set my students up connecting the rest of the year's content in all subject areas. It is just one example of the many integrated learning ideas within one classroom. Imagine the possibilities on a global scale. NASA is a team scattered around the globe and space. Their different parts of their rockets and experiments come from all over, leading them to have to envision, communicate, and problem solve on a much larger scale so that when their mission at hand launches, it will be successful. Imagine completing global projects with classrooms from around the world, creating a global community full of our creative engineers that we teach every day in our rooms. We cannot begin to imagine their future, their jobs, their accomplishments, or their future challenges. But we do have the opportunity to empower them to vision and create it for themselves today. This is Mrs. Herron signing off from Inman Elementary School. Hope you will join us soon on our next mission in Universal Education Exploration.