Today’s session began with a very quick recap on where we left off last week. It had been a very practical session with a lot of moving around and using our bodies to explore weight, weightlessness and gravity. We talked about the virtual session and introduced the concept of ‘cyberspace’. Where is cyberspace? What is it like? I explained the idea of our virtual room in cyberspace that we use for our Virtually There project. We discussed who would be in the room. Today we had a third party, apart from us and Sharon, who intended to listen in to our work from the Kidscape project. It was important to highlight to the children that we were in a safe environment online and no one else could see or hear us. It was also important to point out that cyberspace can be a dangerous place and only to use the internet under adult supervision as it is not a safe place for children to explore unsupervised.
We then discussed the possibility of going on a journey with Sharon into space to visit a new planet which was much nearer to the sun than our planet so we had to make preparations for the journey. We needed special equipment just like astronauts, so we agreed on making space goggles using egg boxes , string, and filter/tissue paper to shield our eyes from the bright sunlight.
The children found the activity challenging as it is not something that a lot of kids do…make things from junk materials. It required patience, and skills such as making knots which were ’alien’ to many of the pupils (pardon the pun).
This was our PREPARING FOR TRAVELLING stage
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We had a bit of practice moving around the perimeter of the classroom wearing our space goggles. The children had to be careful to hold onto the desks on the way around so they wouldn’t float away or get sucked into a black hole. It was wonderful to watch the way they walked like real astronauts in space conscious of the lack of gravity and their own weightlessness.
After a short break outside the children returned to find they had landed on a new planet. It no longer resembled our classroom. This was the second phase of our session the EXPERIENCING phase.
After an opportunity to move around the new planet independently, the children then divided into teams and were tied together using skipping ropes, by the arms or in some cases by the feet, so that they could explore the planet safely without one of their team drifting away into space or being sucked into a black hole! The children had enormous fun during this activity. It required a lot of teamwork as well as physical skill and dexterity not to get caught up in the ropes, which were meant to represent different time zones.
Our third and final stage of our activities today was for the children to RECORD or DOCUMENT what they saw and also if possible what they felt. There was collective agreement that despite the challenges posed by wearing the space goggles(which were discarded by most at this stage) and the challenges of being tied together, there was a lot of fun involved in moving around and exploring this new planet and the children were quite willing to believe that they had been transported to a gravity free environment.
The children’s charcoal drawings show the detailed journeys and the excitement involved in making those journeys both physically and imaginatively.
I love the comment at the top of this drawing.
‘It felt like I was actually in space’
The children’s work is testament to their ability to suspend disbelief and become totally immersed in the experience. It certainly caught their imaginations and provided them with wonderful opportunities to explore concepts such as gravity and weightlessness in a safe and fun way. We probably asked a lot more questions than we knew the answers to, but that added to the interest in the project and in outer space and the idea of travelling in time to another world. We look forward to our next session. Who knows where we will go next?