Space innovators
View Sequence overviewStudents will:
- plan and conduct a fair test to test parachute design, controlling variables as much as possible.
Students will represent their understanding as they:
- construct appropriate representations to record and interpret data collected during their tests.
In this lesson, assessment is summative.
Students working at the achievement standard for Science inquiry should have:
- planned safe, repeatable investigations to identify patterns, test relationships, and make reasoned predictions.
- identified variables to be changed, measured, and controlled.
- used equipment to generate and record data with appropriate precision.
- constructed representations to organise and process data and information and describe patterns, trends, and relationships.
Class science journal (digital or hard-copy)
Equipment to access the internet and watch suggested video clips and view images
Demonstration copy of the Command module landing investigation planner Resource sheet
Demonstration copy of the Variables grid Resource sheet
Various materials to design and construct a command capsule and parachute prototype for testing. For example: scissors, glue, sticky tape, blu-tac, string, cardboard, sheets of plastic, paper, foil, foam, felt etc.
Command module landing investigation planner Resource sheet
Individual science journal (digital or hard-copy)
Lesson
Re-orient
As a class, rewatch How the Apollo Spacecraft works: Part 3 (3:45).
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkIdentifying and constructing questions is the creative driver of the inquiry process. It allows students to explore what they know and how they know it. During the Inquire phase of the LIA Framework, the Question routine allows for past activities to be reviewed and to set the scene for the investigation that students will undertake. The use of effective questioning techniques can influence students’ view and interpretation of upcoming content, open them to exploration and link to their current interests and science capital.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to spend some time considering the mindset of students at the start of each Inquire phase. What do you want students to be thinking about, what do they already know and what is the best way for them to approach the task? What might tap into their curiosity?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkHow was the command module designed?
Look closely at the command module, and list the design features that enabled it to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and land safely:
- the heat shield designed to withstand the extreme temperatures of re-entry
- the parachutes to slow the descent of the capsule
- the material and shape of the capsule itself, designed to be buoyant (able to float) on the water after landing
Discuss whether students will be able to test all three of these features in the classroom, and why it would not be possible to replicate the extreme heat of re-entry in a safe manner in the classroom.
Explain that for this activity students will focus on the parachutes used to slow down the descent of the capsule as it comes in for landing.
Pose the question: What’s the best parachute design to allow for safe descent of the command module?
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkThe Investigate routine provides students with an opportunity to explore the key ideas of science, to plan and conduct an investigation, and to gather and record data. The investigations are designed to systematically develop content knowledge and skills through increasingly complex processes of structured inquiry, guided inquiry and open inquiry approaches. Students are encouraged to process data to identify trends and patterns and link them to the real-world context of the teaching sequence.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment (Launch phase) that identified the alternative conceptions that students held. Are there activities that challenge these ideas and provide openings for discussion? What content knowledge and skills do students need to be able to complete the final (Act phase) task? How could you systematically build these through the investigation routines? Are there opportunities to build students’ understanding and skills in the science inquiry processes through the successive investigations?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkParachute design
Consider the question: What things might affect the descent time of a command module as it lands?
Discuss how taking a long time to land means that the landing will be more gentle for the astronauts. Therefore, a longer descent time (bigger number) is what is desired by Space Command.
Use a variables grid to record students’ ideas and the potential variables, for example; the size, shape, material, and number of parachutes, the way the parachute/s attached to the capsule, the weight of the capsule.
Determine which variable students are going to test (and therefore change) and write an investigable question.
For example: What happens to the descent time of the command module if we change the number of parachutes attached? or What happens to the descent time of the command module if we change the shape of the parachutes?, and so on.
Determine the variables students might be unable to control, such as the wind at the time of testing. Consider how they might lessen the impact of these (e.g. using weather predictions, or aborting testing for a more suitable time).
Determine ways that the parachutes and capsule can be tested safely. For example, selecting a set of stairs that people do not use very often and stationing people at the top and bottom of the stairs to prevent people from walking underneath the dropped capsules.
Using the Command module landing investigation Resource sheet, teams design and carry out a fair test to answer their testable question.
They record data on descent time as they carry out the test, and use the data collected to make a claim about how the variable tested affects descent time.
See the embedded professional learning Adapting to your context—selecting or designing a command module for more information on the command module students will use for this investigation.
Using a variables grid to plan a fair test investigation
How might you support students to conduct an accurate fair test investigation, with a clear investigable question?
All scientific fair tests involve variables. Variables are things that can be changed (independent), measured/observed (dependent) or kept the same (controlled) in an investigation.
When planning a fair-test investigation, to make it a fair, we need to identify the variables. A variables grid can be used to record the identified variables. We then use these variables to turn a broad question, such as "What affects plant growth?" into an investigable one, such as "What happens to the growth of a plant when I change how much water it gets?".
Investigable questions are characterised by their clear identification of what is being changed and what outcome is being measured in a fair test, supporting students to investigate a specific physical phenomenon.
Investigable questions enable students to plan a fair test investigation. The question they have devised can be answered empirically, and data can be collected to support and justify claims made.
By planning for and conducting a fair test, students can make claims about how the variable they have changed in their investigation may have affected what is being measured and/or observed.
To support students to identify variables, and to use those variables to inform their planning of a fair test, we suggest this handy mnemonic ‘Cows Moo Softly’. This helps students remember the letters C, M and S, representing the three types of variables in a fair test:
- Cows: Change one thing (independent variable)
- Moo: Measure/Observe the outcome (dependent variable) and
- Softly: Keep the other things (controlled variables) the Same
Adapting to your context—selecting or designing a command module
What command module are students using to test their parachute designs?
If students are experienced in carrying out fair tests, as well as selecting the variable they will test (such as number of parachutes or parachute shape), you may also allow them to design and make their own command module, and to select items to go inside to mimic the weight of the astronauts.
If students are less experienced at carrying out fair tests, you might provide a template or item to use as the command module, as well as the weight that goes in it. You might also have all groups test the same variable so that the fair test may be guided and scaffolded more easily. You might then consider undertaking the investigation again with a different investigable question, so that students have more information about different designs to choose from.
If students are experienced in carrying out fair tests, as well as selecting the variable they will test (such as number of parachutes or parachute shape), you may also allow them to design and make their own command module, and to select items to go inside to mimic the weight of the astronauts.
If students are less experienced at carrying out fair tests, you might provide a template or item to use as the command module, as well as the weight that goes in it. You might also have all groups test the same variable so that the fair test may be guided and scaffolded more easily. You might then consider undertaking the investigation again with a different investigable question, so that students have more information about different designs to choose from.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkFollowing an investigation, the Integrate routine provides time and space for data to be evaluated and insights to be synthesized. It reveals new insights, consolidates and refines representations, generalises context and broadens students’ perspectives. It allows student thinking to become visible and opens formative feedback opportunities. It may also lead to further questions being asked, allowing the Inquire phase to start again.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment that was undertaken during the Launch phase. Consider if alternative conceptions could be used as a jumping off point to discussions. How could students represent their learning in a way that would support formative feedback opportunities? Could small summative assessment occur at different stages in the teaching sequence?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkDesign decisions
Students share their investigation results with the class, including the claim they have made to answer their investigable question.
Use the QCER tool to help guide the discussion around claims and related evidence, and the CROWN tool to guide the discussion about the design on the capsule and parachute.
The class might refer to the Science Question Starters as a means of interrogating students’ designs and results more deeply.
Discuss what the data collected by students might mean in terms of the design of the parachutes and the command module for spacecraft.
- Did the number of parachutes (or shape, material etc.) have a clear impact on the descent time of the parachute? What effect did it have? Why do you think this happened?
- Did the weight of the command module affect the descent time? Why do you think that?
- Why do you think they left so many parts of the original rocket behind and didn’t bring them all back from space?
- Do you think having the slowest descent time is always the best and safest option for landing astronauts back on Earth? Why do you think that?
- What other designs (besides the one used for the Apollo 11 mission and that we’ve tested) might help astronauts get back from space safely?
- What would you consider if you were redesigning the landing method from scratch?
Reflect on the lesson
You might:
- add relevant terms to the class word wall or glossary.
- add to the L and H columns of the TWLH chart.