Community EmilyLightfoot
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Tbh, I think this is going to be one of the biggest long term challenges for colonising Mars, due to the potential for inter-generational problems with DNA damage.
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lol… I can see advertising labels and certifications on lunar garden soil packets a century from now… “Certified Cosmic Ray Free” and “Guaranteed newer & more fertile than any other brand” with a nostalgic picture of a 20th century astronaut standing on the moon surface next to a big tree ????
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@Mike I would also love to see someone develop a continuous, online, 24/7 interactive, live school – where students can log on, select the “class” that they want to attend and have an interactive, virtual classroom experience with other students and a teacher. The delivery format could include interactive components such as participating in a group discussion with other attendees, asking questions of the teacher, or a “split screen” setup where there are questions and tasks to complete as the class progresses. Classes could also be delivered as a pre-recorded teaching with tasks & questions to be completed as the student progresses through the recording (or use the first delivered class as the recording) – but this would depend on the level of student-teacher interaction required for the particular content delivery and format. Classes could be organised by grade & subject, or by interest topic employing cross-curricular learning. (ie. you could have a Grade 8 science class, or a rocketry topic class that is aimed at multiple age groups and incorporates math, science and other traditional subjects within the lessons). A class schedule could be published in advance, a bit like a TV program guide, with classes frequently repeated and the time that they are held being rotated to cater for different time zones. The information about each class & course could include detailed cross-links to government curriculums for countries like the US, Australia, the UK and any other country that has a sufficiently detailed curriculum. The list of courses & classes could also have a search function so users can search for all the classes with content linked to Grade 4 English from the US curriculum, for example. There could also be a function that keeps a record of the classes that the student has attended and completed, so that charts, stats and reports can be generated to indicate how much of & which specific components of a selected government curriculum the student has completed through the online classes; (this will help home schoolers keep records for home school registration purposes, as well as just tracking the student’s progress in a general sense). Such a system could eventually be used to also deliver educational qualifications like a true online course (fully government accredited school / training provider for various jurisdictions), where students “enroll” for a full course – for example, it could make qualifications like the International Baccalaureate more accessible. The advantage of the above idea over traditional zoom style, scheduled classes is that it offers a lot more flexibility with the delivery; can cater to accelerated and self paced learning much more effectively than the mainstream schooling system does now; could potentially be used as an almost exclusive resource for home schooling purposes (or just bits & pieces – whichever suits each individual user); streamlines the government compliance processes; could be adapted for use by mainstream schools (either separately or in tandem with other users); could be delivered in a manner that is much more cost efficient that the status quo; has the potential to concurrently incorporate both a commercialised subscription structure and a philanthropic approach; you can get better economies of scale; depending on the level of anticipated student interaction for each class, some classes could be capped at low numbers of attendees and others could potentially have 100s or even 1000s of students logged in at once; it could be used to break down barriers caused by disability, poverty or other disadvantage; the current system is very heavily stacked in favour of the well to do – this project could shift the balance of the education system to a more level playing field, where academic merit rather than socio-economic background is the primary driver of progression through the system.
Apologies for my projectile vomit of ideas! I’ll just leave this here… ????
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@Mike asked the question “…thinking how we can positively affect education & teen/pre-teen development in areas that have a disproportionate amount of resources.”
I 100% agree that there is a lack of resources for the pre-teen and teen age group compared to what is available for primary (elementary) aged kids – especially in the online environment & especially with respect to curriculum aligned, self-paced resources.
This is a problem that I am currently facing with my nearly 11 year old son in our home schooling journey. We are currently using subscription based programs like Study Ladder and Prodigy Math (Beast Academy is also in the same sort of category of resources). These resources are online, self paced and curriculum aligned, so they are highly suitable for home schoolers – especially those who have erratic, mobile or highly flexible lifestyles and for kids who need self paced learning, in an entertaining format, to keep them engaged. However, there is not a lot in the way of more advanced learning resources that follow this engaging format. This particularly affects younger children who are undertaking accelerated learning. Once they are finished with these resources that are designed for primary school learners, they are thrown in the deep end of adult style education – a style of learning which they may have a lot of difficulty adjusting to, even though they are ready for the actual content.
I would personally like to see more of the above style of resources developed in alignment with more advanced stages of the government curriculums, or more advanced topics just generally, whilst maintaining a gaming / entertainment format of delivery that appeals to a broad range of ages (even adult learners).
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<div>A detailed map of the universe, including Earth’s position within our home supercluster, Laniakea:</div>
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Ok, so really no difference at all! ???? For a minute there I thought I was going to be able to make some extra profit selling timeshare apartments between planetary jurisdictions… ????
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LOL I think it will ultimately come down to this, Lisa. Earth nations are going to be irrelevant on Mars if they can’t compete with and exert influence over corporate dynasties, space pirates and other socio-political structures yet to be invented!
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Hi Mike, I have actually been drawing up a list of initial discussion topic categories for this group, to give people a few ideas to kick off the conversation (but still in the process of refining it!). I 100% agree with your suggestion about there needing to be a bit more innovative in many areas of educational resources, etc for pre-teens and teens – I’ll open up a new discussion topic for Education Innovation where we can discuss exactly these sort of gaps and how we could address them. ????