United States

The Artemis missions to the Moon are setting the technical and operational stage for the first human missions to Mars as early as the 2030s. These future missions will require the successful transportation of crew, life support systems, and hardware across millions of miles of planetary distance. Furthermore, the propellant mass that is required to deploy hardware and infrastructure from Earth in support of crewed Mars missions is sensitive to the relative planetary alignments between the two planets. The favorable planetary alignment between Earth and Mars (known as opposition) occurs every 26 months, and the most favorable opposition opportunity occurs every 15 years (known as a synodic period). This presentation will discuss how the orbital mechanics between Earth and Mars strongly influence the many aspects of planning human missions to Mars, including transportation of crew, hardware and surface infrastructure, as well communication between Earth and Mars.

AAPT SM 21

Physical and Technical Challenges for Human Missions to Mars

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For large- enrollment introductory physics classes, this situation raises questions of ensuring academic honesty and fairness in assessments. Short, low-stakes quizzes have been suggested as an alternative to traditional exams, in order to minimize opportunity for students to engage in academic dishonesty by way of unauthorized online resources that can be problematic for longer online exams, and to reduce the pressure students feel that may tempt them to cheat on high-stakes exams. However, short quizzes could still be vulnerable to academic dishonesty by way of student sharing of assessment content with each other through various means that may be difficult to detect. Moreover, students may not perceive that short quizzes are meant to be low-stakes. It was found that students learning remotely had a preference for less-frequent, longer assessments, compared to frequent, short quizzes. It was also found that evidence for academic dishonesty was reduced when students perceived the assessments as fair.

Creating Honest, Fair, and Equitable Remote Introductory Physics Exams

In response to student difficulties with staying motivated during online classes, I eliminated exams from Introductory E&M and introduced a standards-based grading approach to the homework. The goals were to relieve stress and highlight that consistent motivation is key to success. This scheme was supported with points for participation and reflection of students' own approach to problems solving. The strategy that the students are asked to take to the class is also more consistent with how professionals address problems. The hope was that this would provide strong incentive to stay continuously engaged throughout the semester. I will talk about my implementation of this, how the students responded, and what I learned about student motivation and success.

Standards-Based Grading Without Exams For Online Instruction

The increase of textbook cost is a contributing factor in achievement gap. With the dissemination of open-source resources and utilizing online simulations it is possible to produce free customized learning tools for the students. Furthermore, online simulations give students perfect opportunity to further their studies, observe real-life application of Physics and check the answers of some model problems presented. At the Middlesex County College, using an OER grant, we completed an open-source workbook for the algebra based General Education Physics-I that has been used in classroom and for homework. Although there is an open-source textbook in College Physics by Open STAX, we have been relying on publisher's lecture slides. For the next step, we would like to compile original lecture slides that incorporates online simulations and workbook problems in parallel with the Open textbook. In this talk, open-source workbook, current work on slides, techniques for integrating the simulations and the challenges are presented.

Combining OER Resources with Online Simulations to Reduce Achievement Gap

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of US colleges and universities chose to continue teaching and rapidly switched to a new mode of instruction that we call Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT). As ERT is different from traditional online learning in scope and intention, it is important to understand student experiences with ERT to better inform ERT instruction (and potentially more traditional instruction as well). Student experiences with ERT cannot be separated from the social and political strife that accompanied it (especially in the US), nor can they be separated from systems of oppression that discriminate based on gender, race, ability, and other factors. In this talk, we explore differential experiences with and impacts of ERT across more than 1700 students enrolled in college and university physics courses in the US in the Fall of 2020.

Students' Differential Experiences with Emergency Remote Teaching in Fall 2020

In this talk I will present a blueprint for decolonizing the classroom. Rather than adhering to the traditional classroom, we create an anti-hierarchical collective where the
most marginalized voices are prioritized. To achieve this, we implement the following key pillars: Justice education as one of the main ingredients in the curriculum. Community town halls to address and improve the classroom climate. (3) Accountability systems through regular (anonymous) surveys collected and evaluated by an
external paid expert. Community building events to build trust as a cornerstone for accountability and mutual solidarity. Adecolonizing physics and astronomy
symposium at the end of the semester, where the collective has an opportunity to share the lessons learned with the broader community. These methods are inspired by
Zapatismo (Chiapas, Mexico) and implemented at Pomona College, a selective liberal arts college in the United States.

Decolonizing the Physics and Astronomy Classroom

In the Fall 2020 semester, the Learning Assistant and instructor for the online general education astronomy course collaborated on instructional material development.
Through activities that incorporated creativity, the arts, current events, and diverse representation, we were better able to support the course’s learning objectives and
outcomes as well as promote the mission and values of our institution. Activities included students creating and naming constellations and exoplanets of their own,
facilitating discussions from scientists of color in TED talks, influencing feedback from the LA’s poetry about astronomy and life, and reflecting on how science connects to society, culture and people. Just as creativity can serve as a bridge between science, self-reflection and expression, LAs serve as a bridge between instructors and
students and bring complimentary experience and expertise to the learning space. This work highlights how LA-instructor collaboration can benefit classroom effectiveness, student engagement and student success

Creative Astronomy: Broadening the scope of an course in Astronomy

NASA’s Artemis program represents a bold vision that will lead humanity forward to the Moon and prepare us for the next giant leap: human exploration of Mars. Through Artemis, with help from commercial and international partners, NASA will develop core capabilities at the Moon, incrementally working toward a sustained lunar presence and validating capabilities for human missions to Mars. Artemis will leverage Commercial Lunar Payload Services to deliver assets to the Moon, Space Launch System and Orion to launch crews to the Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO), Human Landing System to transfer the crew between NRHO and the lunar surface, and Gateway to enable sustainable operations. After establishing these capabilities, NASA will continue working with commercial and international partners to establish the Artemis Base Camp near the lunar South Pole. With operational confidence gained from long-term lunar surface missions, humanity will be ready to send humans to the Red Planet.

NASA's Artemis Program

For decades, astronomy has been studied by undergraduates at colleges, with most of the astronomy courses being taken by general education students. Further, a total number of students that are enrolled in an introductory astronomy, either a cumulate or topical course, is approximately 200,000 students per academic year. During the Spring 2019 semester at the Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI), across two astronomy courses, the Solar System (ASTR 1010) and the Stellar System (ASTR 1020) (Fig. 4), there are 12 course sections and 154 students enrolled. Critical barriers are difficult concepts of science education encountered by students identified by Hawkins (1978), “such as size and scale, air and water and beyond, heat, and elementary mechanics”. These are among the core concepts in introductory astronomy courses. Critical barriers would be likely more difficult to overcome if the student had a learning disability. Most of undergraduate students do not have a self-reported disability, and approximately 10% of undergraduate students report having a disability. One disability that would be very difficult to overcome in an introductory astronomy course is partial or full visual impairment. Astronomy education research is underway to be able to integrate introductory astronomy learning objectives into tangible materials to give blind and visually impaired people. However, limited activities have been initiated here at the Community College of Rhode Island. This project seeks to develop a curriculum kit for visually impaired students based on the content of the ASTR 1010 course to apply tactile, temperature, and sound techniques to determine if it is feasible for use in the introductory solar system course to accomplish the learning objectives of the course, outlined by the college. Our work shows that astronomy course objectives can prove to be difficult for visually impaired individuals to master. However, with extra time and instructor input, creative ways can be generated to ensure that the course learning objectives are met, as shown here, is possible.

Activities for Visually Impaired Learners in Introductory Solar System Astronomy

Our research lab developed the Model-Evidence Link (MEL) activities to support students’ scientific evaluations and judgements when considering alternative explanations of phenomena. For the present study, we tested two astronomy-related MELs--the Moon Formation preconstructed MEL and the Origins of the Universe build-a-MEL--in high school and preservice teacher classrooms. Students engaged in both these activities, completing embedded measures of their evaluations, judgements, and knowledge, pre- and post-instruction. We asked: How do relations between students’ evaluations, judgements, and knowledge compare between the preconstructed MEL and the build-a-MEL? Using a partial least squares structural equation model (SEM), we found that the preconstructed MEL had a stronger relationship between students’ evaluations and post-instruction plausibility judgments, but overall SEM statistical indices showed that the build-a-MEL was more robust in promoting students’ learning. Therefore, for the present study, the build-a-MEL was a better activity for facilitating more scientific evaluations, judgements, and astronomical knowledge.

Comparing Two Scaffolds for Evaluating Scientific Explanations

Teaching the introductory astronomy lecture and lab courses in the hybrid mode presents a challenge when it comes to the students’ projects and experiments. As part of the ALG supported class transformation, the web browser-based tools using Java Script were developed to assist students in projects that they can carry out by themselves or in small groups at home following the provided project description or a simple lab manual. The projects include observation and plotting of the Moon position and phase, and Sun rotation using satellite images and others. 

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Physical and Technical Challenges for Human Missions to Mars

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