http://serc.carleton.edu/spaceboston/2011activities/57632.html#discussion http://serc.carleton.edu/spaceboston/2011activities/57632.html#post18342
I love this exercise - the students' minds will be stretched! for more help you might want to get in touch with the people at NASA who teach the undergraduate and graduate summer schools, where college and graduate students design space missions. They may have additional helpful materials for you.

This unit must develop over time quite profoundly, I would guess. Please keep in touch, and keep updating this page! I'm eager to make it as complete as possible and to take it public.

Lindy]]> Lindy Elkins-Tanton 1313600400 http://serc.carleton.edu/spaceboston/2011activities/57632.html#post18342 http://serc.carleton.edu/spaceboston/2011activities/57632.html#post18344
I like your idea of using this as a culminating project. It will be great to have the students generate the list of points their designs need to "speak to." (You may already be planning to approach it in this way by asking them, in #4, what the space craft must protect travelers from.) Having them be explicit about the properties of the materials represented in their models will also be productive. More important than naming the material, I would think, is being able to know what it needs to do/withstand/accomodate. I'll enjoy seeing the designs your students come up with and hearing about the thinking that goes into them!

Ellen]]> Ellen Doris 1313752620 http://serc.carleton.edu/spaceboston/2011activities/57632.html#post18344