Learning at the Space Center

I had originally planned for this month’s edition of the newsletter to be about a new mission coming soon called Stalemate, but the mission it isn’t quite done yet. So since the school year is starting soon, and the whole team here at Lion’s Gate are hard at work preparing for the school year, This month’s edition of the Lion’s Gate Newsletter is all about how we use our space simulators to assist in the education process!

Space Themed Learning

Ever since the days of the original Voyager back in the 90s, Space Centers have used the wonder of space exploration as a tool for getting students excited about math and science. This was originally in the form of field trips where students would learn about the science of space through live demos and fun experiments, and then do a mission aboard one of the ships. Lion’s Gate Space Center, and by proxy Lakeview Academy, took inspiration from this, but do things a little bit differently.

Lakeview Academy’s Logo

Lion’s Gate’s primary function is running missions for the students of Lakeview Academy. These educational missions seek to bridge the gap between story and learning, incorporating the curriculum the students learn in the classroom directly into the missions. Each grade will come 4 times a year to do a mission. Some missions are continuous stories run throughout the whole year, others are series of individual stories. All of these seek to add a bit of excitement throughout the year for students while also being a fun way to learn and develop their skills.

Director Dan talking with new teachers after a demo flight.

The process of incorporating curriculum into missions, while difficult, adds a level of hands-on learning and provides narrative motivation that can really help students to step out of there comfort zone and grasp concepts they may struggle to grasp in a classroom setting. Integration of curriculum can come in a variety of forms and can be used in almost any subject. Here are some of my favorite examples.

Education Through Immersion

Students learning about American History go through an entire space-themed retelling of the American Revolution, complete with character analogs of the real world historical figures. This gives them the opportunity to speak with them and learn there unique perspectives on this pivotal moment in US history. Some even get to do a space analog of throwing tea into Boston Harbor!

Science is at the core of what we do at the Space Center. Integration in this field range wildly. They may be identified samples collected from nearby asteroids in order to find the right materials for a repair, or mixing chemicals to try and create a cure for an alien pathogen, or creating fortifications to protect scientists' equipment from a particularly bad storm.

PE is a particular favorite among the students. Sometimes they may do capture the flag on the ships, using phasers to “stun” the opposing team, other times they may be tasked with completing a report to repair their ship while avoiding strange alien creatures on the derelict station they are attached to, often involving a lot of running, hiding, or other physical activities.

Mathematics is sometimes difficult to get students to engage with, (Surprising, I know) but can often be incorporated in interesting ways. Students may use graphing to map out a safe path through a dense asteroid field, or solve equations to get the code to a top secret computer file. A particular favorite requires the students to use probabilities and a bit of problem solving to try and figure out where on a planet surface a probe crash-landed.

A new addition allows curriculum questions to be added directly into the controls as part of Special Procedures

Behind The Scenes

Giving the students a space where they can be more independent and problem solve on their own can help them to develop leadership and team cooperation skills that are invaluable as they get older. The entire environment is built from the ground up to give the students every chance to succeed. The teachers are always nearby, either just out of sight watching the students from the cameras, up on the ship helping there students, or in some cases be a part of the story and have fun along side their class.

I could go on all day about everything we do, from meetings with teachersu to coordinate curriculum to on-the-fly adaptation when things inevitably go wrong, but this is already long enough as is. In closing I’ll just say I’m a bit jealous of the students I now work to help teach. I wish I had this when I was their age!

See you all in September!