Schools, educators and teachers who are fans of the Commissioner’s Space to Dream Design Thinking Challenge will be excited to hear local education content creatives, Makers Empire, are busy producing an extended version of the popular Digital Challenge that approximately 40,000 students throughout South Australia have completed since it was launched in 2020.
Above: Harrison Thomas, Presenter of the extended version of Space to Dream
The extended version will sit on the Makers Empire In-App Challenge Course website page, and includes videos that explore South Australian scientists and space industry experts who highlight the constraints and challenges of life on Mars and space travel in general.
As students progress through the Challenge Course, they respond to video content by participating in in-app quizzes and Pro-Training Design Tutorials related to the information shared. The Challenge Course concludes with the open-ended design thinking challenge, which invites the students to draw on all they have learned to design a toy or gadget for someone their age who is moving to Mars, using the Makers Empire 3D design software and the Commissioner’s 5 Step Design Thinking Process.
The team from CCYP have been collaborating closely with Makers Empire who were successful in obtaining grant funding to produce the extended version as an experienced provider of EdTech tools, programs and resources focused on Design Thinking.
Young local actor, Harrison Thomas, (pictured above) was engaged to present the new version so that it has strong appeal to its target audience of students in years 2 – 8. Harrison met with Makers Empire and CCYP content producers at the Mars display featured at the Australian Space Discovery Centre’s Interactive Space Exhibition at Lot Fourteen and can’t wait to return to explore all the interactive components. Harrison loves everything ‘space’ and said he was thrilled to be involved in Space to Dream!
The curriculum aligned In-App Challenge Course comes with a comprehensive Teacher Guide and will be available for access from the Makers Empire website by the start of Term 2. The Teacher Guide includes a range of resources to support learning including video scripts, suggested strategies to enrich the design thinking experience and a list of additional resources.
Schools can register for Space to Dream or any one of the Commissioner’s Digital Challenges here.
