On the 30th of October, the CESAR Team celebrated the 2018-2018 SSE Awards Ceremony with the winners of the Space-Science Experiences (SSE) of the scholar year 2018-2019, at the European Space and Astronomy Center (ESAC).
The prize was given to the grade 2 year classroom of the CEU San Pablo Montepríncipe school, that had enjoyed the Mission to the Moon SSE in February 2019, for their research project.
The students from the CEU San Pablo Montepríncipe school, already in their grade 3 year, came to ESAC to receive their prize together with their inspiring teacher, Fabiola Bueno Campos, who accompanied them during the whole Space-Science Experience, including the processes of design and generation of their awards-winning video.
Once at ESAC, on the 30th October, the winners and their teachers were warmly welcomed by the CESAR Team coordinator, Dr. Michel Breitfellner. As an expert on the ESA Mars missions, Mars Express and ExoMars, Michel guided them through the scientific mission planning of those missions as well as revealed them the secrets of the red planet discovered by the space-science missions.
After this incredible experience, the students had the chance to stare at the satellite models of the some of the key ESA space missions (GAIA, ROSETTA, ISO, SOHO y HERSCHEL), where Michel explained the students their most fascinating stories and discoveries carried out with them.
The CEU San Pablo Monteprincipe students, encharmed with Space and Space Exploration stories of the European Space Agency, we highly motivated to play the CESAR scientific-adventure-game "Mission to Mars I". For this, the students organized themselves in crews (working groups) ready to solve two of the most relevant open-questions for their adventure:
(1) What do you bring with you in your move to Mars?
(2) Where are you going to build your house on Mars?
The game was really really fun, and at the same time the young crews discovered codes to prepare their living to Mars, such as:
- you are going to be about 200 days flying to Mars under microgravity!
- you need to bring oxygen and nitrogen with you to breath! because 98% of the Mars atmosphere is dioxide carbon.
- Similar to Earth, Mars has season, but these last almost double than those on Earth, and the mean temperature on the Mars surface is - 55 degrees!!!
- We are not going to be less fat/thin on Mars, even though our weight machine on Mars will mark a third part than on Earth.
One of the most interesting thing is that students imagined themselves living on Mars in a sustainable way by letting their imagination fly and making use of the critical thinking. The students made agreements among them for taking a common crew decision such as what to bring in a limited-space area and where to life. This final decission was taken by the students after inspecting the scientific images of the Mars terrain available at the ESA archives at ESAC.
The winning-crew within the SSE award-winners, with the nickname of "The Martians", collected an extra reward to the rest of the award-class-students.
At the price-giving ceremony the award to the inspiring teacher from CEU San Pablo Monteprincipe, Fabiola Bueno, was delivered by Dr. Javier Delgado, representing the European Space Agency.
From left to right: Dr. Michel Breitfellner, Dr. Javier Delgado, Fabiola Bueno
Apart from the material prizes, the best reward to all the winning-class and the CESAR Team was to enjoy a vibrant day altogether, in which part of the never-ended-kids-curiosity was filled, to generate new dreams and questions to be answered. You can count with the CESAR Team for this!
In this new scholar year (2019-2020), where the Space-Science Experiences have kicked-off, we are looking forward to seeing you, CEU San Pablo Monteprincipe school, as well as to all the schools in the Comunidad de Madrid and Spain. We are ready to explore with you the Universe and its misteries
A big hurray to the teacher, Fabiola Bueno, for her dedication. This prize has your name!
