Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Why Didn't My Niece's Teacher Show the Rover Video?

I'm including this video of the Perseverance rover descending and landing on Mars, which probably you've seen, just because it's so cool.

I was emailing my 13-year old niece, and she said her mom mentioned a rover had landed on Mars, but the picture I sent was the first she'd seen. Then yesterday I sent this video, which she really liked. She's in remote learning, very diligent about it, and a master on her Chromebook. I'm a little disappointed that her teachers didn't take a little time to discuss the rover landing, show a picture, and then this video. Or had mentioned it before now and prepped them. When I was a kid in ancient times they wheeled a TV into our classroom on a high stand and we watched the Apollo launches and landings if they were during school hours, and it was exciting. I watched them at home, too, and will forever remember staying up late to watch Neil Armstrong step onto the Moon. I don't know if it influenced me going into science -- I was already pretty "deep" into space stuff when I was 5 years old and made a study area in the corner of our living room with books and NASA posters and little spaceship models -- it was a phase -- but seeing Apollo missions in school didn't hurt. And it was cool and fun. 'Course we didn't "study for the test" back then -- what in the US has come to mean teachers only preparing students to do well on achievement tests and prep exams and college entrance tests, and nothing else. So I don't understand why her teachers wouldn't have taken a few minutes to discuss this rover landing. What 7th grader isn't going to be wowed by this video? Hopefully they'll get to it.
 

3 comments:

Entropic man said...

Thank you My five year old granddaughter is also very engaged with Perseverence, so I've sent her this link.

Mark said...

When I was in the 6th grade, several kids brought transistor radios to class so we could listen to the Project Mercury missions. It was big excitement then.

David Appell said...

Mark, thanks for sharing. I wonder if anything at all could generate the same excitement in 6th graders today.