The entry event into the newest fifth grade project was an engaging watch-party featuring Ridley Scott/20th Century FOX studios’ The Martian. Students’ interest was peaked when Mark Watley (Matt Damon) was left for dead on Mars after his suit was breached in a storm and he awoke to realize he had survived, but perhaps not for long. With a food supply of about 9 months, but four years before a rescue mission arrives, Mark has to put his botany skills to the test if he is to survive. Munching potato chips, students watched Mark cultivate one dozen potatoes NASA had sent with them for Thanksgiving dinner (which NASA actually does for the ISS Astronauts), and create a water cycle to help his crop grow.
In this unit, students will call on their prior learning of hydrology and the water cycle, as well as the planets and solar system, as they design and create their own ecosystems that cycle hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide, to germinate and grow an edible plant for at least 35 Sols (and they’ll do the math to figure out how many Earth days that is). Along the way, students will learn about food chains, food webs, producers, consumers, decomposers, photosynthesis, the carbon/oxygen cycle, and a total system collapse, in seven milestone lessons. Math, language arts, scientific illustration and history/social studies are all threaded through the project, alongside games such as the “food chain game” which students enjoyed playing last week.
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