Education project sets young Canadians on the science highway
Coming soon to a school near you: The National Mobile Space Station
Primary and secondary school students will have the chance to do hands-on experiments involving various scientific concepts that pertain to space exploration.
Starting in January 2006 students of the Commission scolaire de Montréal (CSDM) will be invited to visit the National Mobile Space Station.
This travelling educational project is self-contained, specially equipped, 18-metre-long trailer, designed and built at the École des métiers de l’aérospatiale de Montréal in conjunction with some 30 partners including the Canadian Space Agency and Quebec’s Ministère du Développement économique, de l'Innovation et de l'Exportation.
Students conduct experiments during an educational session aboard the National Mobile Space Station. (Photo: Commission scolaire de Montréal)
The $1.5-million trailer can be transported anywhere and is equipped with its own generator and a satellite dish as well as Internet and videoconference access. First, it will stop at schools throughout Quebec, then head out on a three-year tour of schools across Canada.
State-of-the-art learning tool
The station has state-of-the-art equipment and can host a class of 30 students who will be assisted in their one-day mission by a technician and their teacher. Chrystine Legault, the CSDM’S science education consultant who came up with this exciting educational project explains her role:
The National Mobile Space Station trailer visits the Canadian Space Agency headquarters in Longueuil, Quebec.
“First I meet with the teacher for a three-day training course. The teacher then becomes the leader for the class mission which can be chosen from a number of suggested teaching scenarios.”
The Station is an interactive learning facility. “In our trailer,” Legault says, “we follow the scientific method. We teach using scientific thinking processes. The idea behind our approach is not necessarily to answer all the young people’s questions. We get them thinking and help them find their own answers through the hands-on experiments they perform during their mission.” This experience will expose them to a number of scientific applications and the careers and professions associated with them.
Concept supported by Canadian Space Agency
“It is a teaching philosophy enthusiastically supported by the Agency as part of its Space Awareness and Learning Program,” says Marilyn Steinberg, the program’s manager.
The Station is a tool for reinforcing science concepts taught in classrooms. Students can explore 11 fields of science or technology in the workstations:
Botany
Astronomy
Technology
Biochemistry
Printed circuits
Wiring and electricity
Robotics
Human biology
Soil sciences
Microscopy
Logic, deduction, and reflection in the Thinker’s Corner
Marilyn Steinberg, Manager, Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Space Awareness and Learning Program, addresses the audience during a presentation on the National Mobile Space Station at the CSA Conference Centre.
