6th Graders Compete in First "Cities in Space"
Art teacher Holly Melear made a special announcement to sixth-graders after chapel one day that ignited the imagination of Laney Goodrum, “Ms. Melear was talking about her involvement with The New World Institute Conference and told us about the ‘Cities in Space’ competition for students.” The challenge: create a self-sustaining colony for 1,000 people in space. As Laney’s imagination took off, her talks with fellow students soon mobilized a team of nine to tackle the challenge, including Bering Edwards, Dexter Glassco, Lucy Layne, Graham Speight, Bray Stratton, Avery Wayne, Luke Weaver, and Emily Grace Williams.
The team had a month to create a model colony, a presentation, and a six-page paper to illustrate how their colony would function. Their Moon colony “Stelluna” included a government and education system, as well as cultural details related to art, clothing, language, and music. Bering says, “I stayed up late to watch the news and presidential debates, but I also used knowledge from my Latin and social studies classes” to create the government system. To research self-sustaining practices, Laney says, “I watched NASA’s [video streaming of] the International Space Station. They’re recycling human waste and growing plants on the Station, so that was really interesting and helpful.”
The two biggest challenges they faced were “the timeline and decisionmaking. We didn’t have much time, but we made up for it by using all our free time in school, after school, and even coming in on our day off to work on it. And sometimes it was hard to get everyone to agree on what to do. But we talked a lot about empathy on our Mo Ranch trip--it was an amazing trip--so we all knew compromise was important.”
The excitement leading up to the competition was palpable for the students. The girls even had a slumber party together the night before, so they could go to the competition together. Laney says, “We’re all really excited to see how it turns out. Even if we don’t win, we’re really glad we got to do this.”
The Oct. 16 competition included 400 student competitors from across Texas. St. Andrew’s received an honorable mention for Stelluna’s arts and social sciences programs. Faculty advisor Sharla Campbell remarks, “Seeing the students work collaboratively was incredible to observe. They loved meeting and interacting with students from other schools, and listening to NASA engineers and leaders in the field of space exploration.” To read more about the Cities in Space competition, visit http://newworlds.space/cities/
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The two biggest challenges they faced were “the timeline and decisionmaking. We didn’t have much time, but we made up for it by using all our free time in school, after school, and even coming in on our day off to work on it. And sometimes it was hard to get everyone to agree on what to do. But we talked a lot about empathy on our Mo Ranch trip--it was an amazing trip--so we all knew compromise was important.”
The excitement leading up to the competition was palpable for the students. The girls even had a slumber party together the night before, so they could go to the competition together. Laney says, “We’re all really excited to see how it turns out. Even if we don’t win, we’re really glad we got to do this.”
The Oct. 16 competition included 400 student competitors from across Texas. St. Andrew’s received an honorable mention for Stelluna’s arts and social sciences programs. Faculty advisor Sharla Campbell remarks, “Seeing the students work collaboratively was incredible to observe. They loved meeting and interacting with students from other schools, and listening to NASA engineers and leaders in the field of space exploration.” To read more about the Cities in Space competition, visit http://newworlds.space/cities/
