Post-Mission Reflection

When you return to school, students can reflect on and discuss their space mission experience. Reflection helps students question the assumptions, beliefs and uncertainties they had both before and after the mission. It also provides an opportunity to reframe the experience.

What does it mean to be critically reflective?

A Taxonomy of Reflection
Creating: What should I do next?		NOW WHAT?
Evaluating: How well did I do?		SO WHAT?
Analyzing: Do I see any patterns in what I did?
Applying: Where could I use this again?
Understanding: What was important about it?
Remembering: What did I do?		WHAT?

Model developed by Peter Pappas
Source: peterpappas.com

Reflection and Discussion

Step 1: Describe

Ask students to describe their experience. Have them think about the who, what, where and when. Here are some prompts to help guide this discussion:

What was your experience? What happened? Who was involved?
What skills or abilities did you use? (Examples might include communicating, listening, negotiating, explaining, following directions and solving problems.)
What difficulties or challenges did you face?

Step 2: Interpret

Prompt students to interpret their experience. Have them think about the meaning of the experience, their feelings, how and why they made decisions and the lessons they learned. Here are some prompts to help guide this discussion:

What did you do well during the mission?
What were some feelings you had in the simulation?
What new skills did you practise? What new knowledge did you test?
Did you have the knowledge and skills to perform your tasks? If not, what did you do? How did this make you feel?
Describe the experience of having to rely on others to complete your tasks.
What might you do differently if you could do the mission again?
What were you most proud of in the work you did?
Were there any emergencies? How did you resolve them?
Were there any tense or funny moments?
What did you learn that was interesting or important?
What did you learn about yourself?
What questions do you still have?

Step 3: Contextualise

Ask students to put their learning into context. Have them consider how this experience might relate to other tasks or situations they might encounter. Have them think about how they can apply their insights to new situations, set future goals and create action plans. Here are some prompts to help guide this discussion:

Considering the skills you used and the challenges you faced, what is one new thing you learned as a result of this experience?
When there is a problem to solve in the future, what steps might you take?
What advice would you give a friend about to experience this mission?
Did you learn anything that could help you make important decisions about the planet?
Think about what you’ve learned. How does it relate to your school life, future career aspirations or interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)?

Step 4: Debate

Ask students to apply what they’ve learned to a debate. Have them exercise their curiosity, reasoning, insight and creativity to argue their case. Here are some debate prompts to consider:

Should governments and companies spend money on space exploration? What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing so? Consider the impact of space research on science, including climate change, as well as the cost.
What are some of the advantages and the disadvantages of sending humans to Mars?
Consider the cost and risks of human space exploration. Should we invest in it, or should we only send robots to space?
Should humans own, mine, terraform or change the surface of another planet or moon?

Press Conference

Space agencies hold press conferences and debriefing sessions after every mission. Hold a press conference in your classroom after completing the Reflection and Discussion portion of your post-mission reflection. Provide students time to complete the following activities in their groups:

The Media Teams can present the interviews and photos they gathered during the mission.
All other teams can prepare a written report and oral presentation about their mission tasks, skills practised and learned, as well as about how they can apply their experience both in the classroom and for their personal development.