Nurturing the passion and capabilities for exploring the unknown are no doubt among the most important goals of 21st century education. On this front, there is probably no theme that sparks the excitement of young people more than space exploration. This year happens to mark the 50th anniversary of the first human moon landing. As we launch our school in Shenzhen, the Center of Excellence (CoE) team has created a special exhibition and educational activities to commemorate the Moon Landing anniversary.
As one of the highlights of the 20th-century human history, the Moon Landing of Apollo 11 in 1969 was, above all, a success story of human aspiration to explore and challenge the unknown. As J.F. Kennedy’s famous speech had it, “we choose to go to the moon…and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard”. More than 5 decades later, this is still one of the most inspiring lines among famous speeches.
The Moon Landing was also obviously a great achievement of human scientific and technological expertise. With countless innovations in propulsion, mechanical control, electrical circuitry, material science, communication technology etc., and with a dead-heavy computer that has a ROM of only 2K, hundreds of thousands of men and women worked for many years to put the simple formulae of Newtonian mechanics into reality, and hence made possible the first footprint that human ever left on an extra-terrestrial body.
The Moon Landing was also a great success of project management. With over 400,000 people working together on the Apollo Project at its peak, the quality of coordination and management required made it a perfect case in point for the powerfulness of systematic project management thinking and methodologies.
In fact, as manifested in Moon Landing, for any great exploration that succeeds, passion, expertise and methodology are all indispensable. And these three areas are also what our Center of Excellence team focuses on in guiding and nurturing our students.
The Apollo 11 Moon Landing is associated with a plethora of narratives about the myth and wonders of the outer space, the many ingenious scientific applications and technological achievements that made the project possible, the adventurous experiences of the Astronauts involved, the grand historical context and social forces that shaped the US-Soviet cold war, and the many once untold stories of backstage heroes during the Apollo Project etc. For a topic of such depth and richness, we choose to focus our exhibition on inspiring students’ curiosity for space exploration. We try to present vivid historical facts while showcasing the warmth of technology, to present a multi-faceted view of the Apollo Project. We intend to provide students a holistic exhibition experience, with many windows opened for their further research.
Our exhibition was comprised of 5 parts. Part One was about the historical context of the Apollo Project. Besides talking about the space race between Soviet Union and the US, we also intentionally added content about China’s “Two Bombs and One Satellite” Project. Part Two presented a detailed view of the Apollo Project itself. Walking through the exhibition, students are led to think about a range of questions such as: how was the rocket carried onto the launching pad? What material was used on the ground when the rocket launches?
In Part Three, we turned to the unsung heroes that made the Moon Landing possible. Taking advantage of the closets in the exhibition room, we designed an experience for the students to find out information about the hidden figures by looking for answers behind the closet door. In Part Four, our CoE teachers prepared many real-life objects and self-made teaching tools to illustrate how technologies first developed for aerospace were later applied to wider civilian uses. Through these exhibition objects, we hope the students can see the link between aerospace technologies that seem out of reach and our daily life, to understand how scientific research and technological progress can be transferred and widely applied.
In the final part of the exhibition, we used VR experience and a designed message board to present an open ending. The VR tour was designed to make students feel they are in the space, and hopefully became a unique invitation for them to further explore the unknown. The message board provided them an opportunity to express their thinking and interest for the future.
Besides passive exhibitions, we also designed a variety of activities based on students interests and science curriculum standards. Lower grade students made their own rocket models with Lego, and higher-grade students learned to build intuition about projectile motion, momentum and the power of team collaboration in our air rocket launch activity. The many detailed designs of the exhibition itself are also meant to show students examples of how messages can be communicated effectively through a combination of visual, audio and interactive experiences.
Over the past 1 month, we were delighted to have welcomed all grades in lower and middle school to visit the exhibition. The enthusiasm and engagement that students showed was a great encouragement to our team.
One thing worth mentioning is that the whole planning and making of the Moon Landing Exhibition was all finished in less than 3 weeks by the CoE team, during our spare time in the faculty training that preceded the school opening. As our unique attempt in K12 education, I feel really privileged to have assembled such a marvelous team of talents, under the strong support of our two amazing Headmasters. Each member of the CoE team comes with uniquely strong background in one or more areas among science, technology, engineering, art and design. Our shared passion for education bonded us together, and our complementary knowledge, experience and capabilities have joined together to produce amazing creativity. What we need to do now, is to fully leverage this amazing creativity to inspire and empower each and every student.
Besides the Moon Landing exhibition program, within the first month of the school, our CoE teachers have also optimized the student pick-up process with computer programs, created a fun Mid-Autumn Festival celebration science competition for all middle school grades, and produced many innovative experiential learning activities for projects across grades. After the National Day holidays, we will also start to offer the first batch of Personal Projects to students. In these projects, students are given the opportunities to decorate the campus using creative art design and interactive technologies, to design and create their own vending machines, or learn to implement Artificial Intelligence technology to improve school safety.
Through these projects, we hope students not only learn specific technical tools or skills, but also improve their understanding and build up toolkits for design thinking, artistic expression, project management and teamwork. Most importantly, we want students to experience the power of technology, art and design in improving daily lives, solving real-life problems and achieving self-expression through fulfilling achievements, to inspire their passion and confidence for learning and applying their learnings.
Lastly, when we planned the Moon Landing exhibition, we adapted Mao’s poems to create the Chinese title “build sky-high ambitions and reach the moon”. The title manifests what the CoE team hopes for all our students, that every kid can maintain their passions and ideal, and navigate adroitly between emotions and rationality.
About the Author
Brian Yang
Director of Center of Excellence
A native of Hunan, China, Brian Yang received his bachelor’s degree from Peking University and a Ph.D. from Yale University.
Brian then went on to work for McKinsey & Co., first in Chicago and later as the founding member of McKinsey’s office in Shenzhen.
Having experienced the best of what both China and the US have to offer in education, Brian is attracted to Whittle by the vision
of a global school that leverages the best resources, talents, and capabilities from around the world.
