Would you like to liven up your STEM class with real, first-hand data collected during the NASA’s InSight mission? The Schools Tune Into Mars MOOC will offer real, first-hand data and provide tools to STEM teachers who would like to explore Mars missions and their ramifications for our lives on Earth together with their students.
This MOOC will bring Mars Missions into the classroom and will provide teachers with the knowledge and skills needed to teach difficult scientific concepts requiring interdisciplinary approaches and thus make these concepts more accessible to their students. This training will use NASA's InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) mission data. InSight is a robotic lander designed to study the deep interior of the planet Mars in order to better understand both Mars and Earth.
The course will consist of four modules, each of them tackling different aspects of Mars missions that can be taught in the classroom.
Learn more about space missions to Mars - whose aim is to guide better understanding of our planet – their importance for society and for students, and their implications for education.
Explore first-hand knowledge from scientists and from the InSight mission and learn how you can use it in your teaching.
Learn how to use Mars-related experiments in educational contexts.
Understand how to develop critical thinking of your students
Prerequisites
This course is open to anyone willing to take it, but the main target audience are secondary school teachers, and teacher trainers from Europe and beyond with an interest in space education.
Modules
Module 1: Space missions to Mars - opens on 04/05/2020
Module 2: Mars related experiments in education - opens on 11/05/2020
Module 3: Interdisciplinary teaching with Mars missions - opens on 18/05/2020
Module 4: Create your lesson plan - opens on 25/05/2020
Certification
In order to earn a course certificate, course participants need to pass all the quizzes, submit their own lesson plan and review three lesson plans of other participants. The final deadline to complete all activities is 10 June 2020, 23:59 CEST. The participation in the quizzes will amount to 5% of the final grade and is not a requirement for receiving the course certificate. The learning scenario, together with the peer reviews, will count for 95% of the final grade.
The overall passing grade is 95%.
Note to teachers from Portugal: You can get your successful participation in a European Schoolnet Academy course formally recognised as a valid continuous professional development, and thereby acquire the relevant number of training hours, by sending your certificate to the Conselho Científico e Pedagógico de Formação Contínua (CCPFC) at Rua do Forno, nº 30, 1º andar - apartado 2168, 4700 - 429 Braga, Portugal. For more information, please contact the CCPFC.
(Sociology and Social Policy/Project Coordination and Pedagogy) Bori works as a Project Officer in the Science Education Department of European Schoolnet (EUN). She is coordinating the pedagogical activities in BLOOM project (creation of learning scenarios, MOOC design and coordination), she is the coordinator of Europeana DSI-4 on behalf of EUN (teacher coordination, MOOC coordination) She also coordinates the Ocean Literacy for All and Nature-based Solutions projects. Furthermore, Bori supports Scientix by coordinating the Scientix blog and the European Schoolnet Academy by creating a number of MOOCs.
(Project management) Noelle works in the EUN’s Science Education Department. She is Project Manager of the STEM School Label, Deputy Project Manager of Scientix and coordinates the activities of EUN in STIM project.
Disclaimer and Copyright
Schools Tune Into Mars (STIM) is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. The European Commission support for the production of this material does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. More information about STIM on the project webpage.
