Planet Research & Rover Design

This is a multi week project integrated project where students research a planet, create a video advertisement for their planet, and then apply their research by designing and prototyping a rover that is perfect for studying their planet.

Students learn: reading nonfiction books, non fiction text features, research skills, organizing data, paraphrasing/rephrasing information to suit your needs, hooking an audience, public speaking, writing, video recording, using research for design and prototyping,

Here's an overview of our process:
1. Students work in pairs to select 3 non fiction resources about their planet
2. After that, they take notes from their books using sticky notes (color coded by book for an easy way to site sources.)
3. Students organize their sticky notes into categories and label each category
4. They make a poster about their planet with pictures. They reframe their facts into marketing language (ie. tired of the cold winters where you live? come to Mars where the average temperature is a balmy 867 degrees!"
5. Next, they write a script for a video advertisement for people to come to their planet.
6. After learning about rovers and probes, students apply their planet research by designing a rover that is perfect for studying their planet. They create a video to pitch their rover to NASA.