Australian Virtual Astronaut (AVA) challenge goes global Follow FizzicsEd Articles: Comments 0 Join the 2023 AVA Challenge here With Australian schools in lockdown during the 2021 winter, students in NSW spent the majority of the season completing their schooling via home learning. This period of time presented educators with a range of challenges including difficulty in engaging and motivating primary and secondary students in an online environment, and a growing occurrence of mental health issues in students living with the lack of connection and stress caused by the pandemic and the extended lockdown. With these issues on their mind, a group of STEM education experts and design thinking leaders put their heads together and developed the Australian Virtual Astronaut (AVA) Challenge – a 6-week space design challenge, in which teachers and schools could participate as part of their home learning activity lesson plans. The 6-week program challenged students from across 6 countries and 199 schools to form remote teams and create a Family Home Outpost (FHO) on the Moon. Their task was to design a way of surviving and thriving, and to solve the problems that astronauts face, such as how to grow food in space, in the International Space Station, or even on Mars. The program ran over 6 weeks and included a range of respected STEM education leaders and special guest appearances from the likes of Dr Karl, Dr Adrian Brown from NASA’s Mars Rover Mission, and Astrophysicist, Kirsten Banks. The STEM Ed Experts included : Dr Scott Sleap – SISP Project Leader (NSW Department of Education), Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence for Secondary Science Teaching, Commonwealth Bank Teaching Fellow Ben Newsome – Churchill Fellow, AMP Tomorrow Maker and Founder of Fizzics Education Ted Tagami – User Advisory Committee Education Chair at ISS US National Lab and CoFounder of Magnitude Lori Waters – VP of Learning Experiences at Magnitude Wendy Bode – Deputy Principal, Global Tropics Future Project, Commonwealth Bank Teaching Fellow, QLD Virtual STEM Academy Jim Christensen – Executive Director of ShareSpace Education, the education arm of the Aldrin Family Foundation Ian Preston – Riverina STEM Project Officer and Deputy Principal (NSW Department of Education), Deputy Principal NSW Virtual STEM Academy Allan Ryan – Adjunct Professor at UTS Business School Founder of Hargraves Institute Kylie Burrett & Glenn Lawrence – GOLD Good Design Award Winner, Founders of Design Nuts Dr Ken Hudson – Lecturer at UTS Speaker & Founder of Ideas Blitz Gillian Hewitt – Founder of Imaginaturalists The 2021 challenge webinar videos and materials are available online and accessible to anyone interested at https://stem2021.com.au/ava/. The challenge was such a huge success that the team are looking to run it again in 2022. If you are keen to support or get your school involved in next year’s challenge please contact Dr Scott Sleap at stem@det.nsw.edu.au. Happy teaching Ben Newsome Love Science? Subscribe! Join our newsletter Receive more lesson plans and fun science ideas. PROGRAMS COURSES SHOP SCIENCE PARTIES Calendar of Events HIGH SCHOOL Science@Home 4-Week Membership 12PM: March 2024 Feb 26, 2024 - Mar 29, 2024 12PM - 12PM Price: $50 - $900 Book Now! PRIMARY Science@Home 4-Week Membership 2PM: March 2024 Feb 26, 2024 - Mar 22, 2024 2PM - 2PM Price: $50 - $900 Book Now! Light and Colour Online Workshop, Jan 18 PM Jan 18, 2024 2PM - 3PM Price: $50 Book Now! Light and Colour Online Workshop, Jan 18 AM Jan 18, 2024 9AM - 11AM Price: $50 Book Now! Lego Robotics, Sydney Olympic Park Jan 2024 Jan 24, 2024 9AM - 12PM Price: $50 Book Now! Creative Coding, Sydney Olympic Park Jan 2024 Jan 24, 2024 1PM - 4PM Price: $50 Book Now! Creative Coding, Sydney Olympic Park July 11 2023 Jul 11, 2023 9AM - 4PM Price: $100 Book Now! Fizzics Education STEAM Day: Robots vs Dinosaurs, Lalor, Apr 14 Apr 14, 2023 9AM - 12PM Price: $45 - $50 Book Now! Creative Coding, Sydney Olympic Park April 14 2023 Apr 14, 2023 9AM - 4PM Price: $100 Book Now! Science@Home After School 4-Week Membership: March 2023 Mar 06, 2023 - Mar 31, 2023 4PM - 5PM Price: $40 - $1200 Book Now! Featured Articles Post-It notes teach collaboration & identify understanding Topics Churchill Fellowship [19] Gaming [7] Ozscied [2] Teaching [264] Chemistry [5] International [1] Photography [1] Play [1] numeracy [1] Cleveland [1] Gifted [7] Podcasts [119] Television [2] design thinking [8] Chinese student visits [1] Parenting [4] preservice teaching [5] Higher order thinking [1] Club [4] History [4] Pop Culture [4] Toys & Gadgets [1] project-based learning [5] Science & Technology Camps [1] Lesson ideas [1] Comedy [2] Philosophy [1] Coding [14] Indigenous [3] Preschool [24] Video Conferencing [40] family [2] Design [2] Lab Tech [1] math [1] Pakistan [1] Cooking [3] Kids [36] Remote Education [17] Virtual Excursions [9] Inclusive education [6] Oceans [5] Leadership [1] Electricity [1] Dinosaurs [7] Kids Parties [5] Robotics [10] Edutech [26] Classroom management [1] video conference [1] special needs [1] scholarship [1] Apps [11] Distance Education [51] Kitchen Chemistry [7] Safety [2] Distance Learning [19] Student encouragement [2] online [4] image [1] Africa [1] Agriculture [4] Eastershow [2] Maker Space [11] Scicomm [141] primary education [46] STEAM [10] virtual [2] gamification [1] Asia Pacific [1] Art [17] Edchat [223] Maths [14] Scied [34] literacy [7] Higher education [4] Child online safety [1] Esports [1] Easter [1] Augmented Reality [4] Edtech [68] Media [18] Science [6] secondary education [44] teacher [1] dis [0] biotechnology [1] curriculum [2] AussieED [1] Education [210] Museums [31] Science News [4] Christmas [1] Vacation care [1] Film [1] computational thinking [2] high [1] Awards [13] Educhange [5] Music [3] Social Media [8] experiments [6] middle school [2] Inquiry-based learning [5] digital technologies [5] Earth science [1] Big History [1] Environment [38] NASA [6] Soils [1] seasonal [1] Artificial Intelligence [3] List [1] Games [1] Medicine [1] Biology [44] Events [45] National Science Week [3] Space Science [30] competitions [12] Sustainability [9] Student investigation [2] Social Emotional Learning [1] CAST test [1] Books [3] Farming [1] Outdoors [36] Sport [8] careers [10] UN SDGs [4] collaboration [1] Engineering [4] US Education [1] China [1] Food [4] Outreach [35] STEM [222] Physics [6] Global [2] K to 2 education [1] Virtual reality [2] citizen science [1] Load More Topics
Join the 2023 AVA Challenge here With Australian schools in lockdown during the 2021 winter, students in NSW spent the majority of the season completing their schooling via home learning. This period of time presented educators with a range of challenges including difficulty in engaging and motivating primary and secondary students in an online environment, and a growing occurrence of mental health issues in students living with the lack of connection and stress caused by the pandemic and the extended lockdown. With these issues on their mind, a group of STEM education experts and design thinking leaders put their heads together and developed the Australian Virtual Astronaut (AVA) Challenge – a 6-week space design challenge, in which teachers and schools could participate as part of their home learning activity lesson plans. The 6-week program challenged students from across 6 countries and 199 schools to form remote teams and create a Family Home Outpost (FHO) on the Moon. Their task was to design a way of surviving and thriving, and to solve the problems that astronauts face, such as how to grow food in space, in the International Space Station, or even on Mars. The program ran over 6 weeks and included a range of respected STEM education leaders and special guest appearances from the likes of Dr Karl, Dr Adrian Brown from NASA’s Mars Rover Mission, and Astrophysicist, Kirsten Banks. The STEM Ed Experts included : Dr Scott Sleap – SISP Project Leader (NSW Department of Education), Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence for Secondary Science Teaching, Commonwealth Bank Teaching Fellow Ben Newsome – Churchill Fellow, AMP Tomorrow Maker and Founder of Fizzics Education Ted Tagami – User Advisory Committee Education Chair at ISS US National Lab and CoFounder of Magnitude Lori Waters – VP of Learning Experiences at Magnitude Wendy Bode – Deputy Principal, Global Tropics Future Project, Commonwealth Bank Teaching Fellow, QLD Virtual STEM Academy Jim Christensen – Executive Director of ShareSpace Education, the education arm of the Aldrin Family Foundation Ian Preston – Riverina STEM Project Officer and Deputy Principal (NSW Department of Education), Deputy Principal NSW Virtual STEM Academy Allan Ryan – Adjunct Professor at UTS Business School Founder of Hargraves Institute Kylie Burrett & Glenn Lawrence – GOLD Good Design Award Winner, Founders of Design Nuts Dr Ken Hudson – Lecturer at UTS Speaker & Founder of Ideas Blitz Gillian Hewitt – Founder of Imaginaturalists The 2021 challenge webinar videos and materials are available online and accessible to anyone interested at https://stem2021.com.au/ava/. The challenge was such a huge success that the team are looking to run it again in 2022. If you are keen to support or get your school involved in next year’s challenge please contact Dr Scott Sleap at stem@det.nsw.edu.au. Happy teaching Ben Newsome
This website uses cookies to improve user experience. By using our website you consent to all cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy.
Thank you for looking to subscribing to our newsletter 🙂 Through this service you’ll be first to know about the newest free experiments, science news and special offers. PLUS: Get a free Kitchen Chemistry Booklet with >20 experiments, how to use variables plus a handy template!
Please fill out the details below and an email will be sent to you. Once you get that just click on the link to confirm your subscription and you're all done!