{"id":20,"date":"2017-03-28T13:36:56","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T00:36:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greenkiwi.org.nz\/?page_id=20"},"modified":"2020-09-19T12:19:23","modified_gmt":"2020-09-19T00:19:23","slug":"spaceship-earth","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/greenkiwi.org.nz\/spaceship-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Spaceship Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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Spaceship Earth<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Spaceship Earth is an exciting new course that teaches existing curriculum within an education for sustainability framework. Key sustainability concepts are presented in an interpretive context that will engage and fascinate students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basic Premise<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

New Zealand is planning to send a huge manned spaceship on a voyage of discovery around our solar system which will take 200 years. The class is asked to help decide what the spaceship would need to have (or not have) to sustain itself for that length of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learning objective<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Earth is like a huge spaceship \u2013 a materially closed*, finely balanced, finite system<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This extended \u2018thought experiment\u2019 will help students discover a number of concepts related to the nature and sustainability of materially closed ecosystems \u2013 the point being that earth itself is a materially closed, finely balanced and finite ecosystem and it\u2019s sustainability is dependent on choices that people make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flexible course structure<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Spaceship Earth can be customised to suit time, level and curriculum requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The course is divided into ten separate modules each focussed on a different area of sustainability. The course would ideally be taught in one term with one module per week taught in 3-5 lessons. There are a huge number of acticities and projects to support and enhance the course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Curriculum<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The course has been developed in order to deliver learning objectives from the new NZ Curriculum \u2013 within a sustainability for education framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each module has at least one, or usually more, prescribed links to specific achievement objectives in various learning areas especially Science, Social Sciences, Technology and Health. By using the activities included \u2013 such as inquiries, experiments, projects and readings \u2013 there is flexibility and scope to cover a wider range of learning areas and learning objectives at the teachers discretion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The course has been designed to reflect the vision, principles and values of the new curriculum and to help develop students\u2019 key competencies. In particular, the whole course relates to the principles of \u2018Coherence\u2019 and \u2018Future focus\u2019 and also the values of equity, ecological sustainability, and community and participation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presentation of course content<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Each module is presented in a Teacher\u2019s Guide with:<\/p>\n\n\n\n