"Shooting Stars"

Growing up in the middle of a polluted, developing city, it needs some luck to get a glimpse of a clear starry night sky. The moon and a couple of bright stars are the only celestial beauties I get to see from my home. It is only when I am somewhere in a country-side or near a huge lake, do I realize what the night skies actually hold. It is magnificent. It is truly beautiful. Dotted with a million dazzling stars, the sky on a clear cloudless night looks like a piece of heaven looking down on earth.

So, whenever I get the opportunity, I love to gaze at the night sky and admire its beauty and mystery, with awe. It is not just peaceful, but also inspiring. Last December, on a class trip to a beautiful place nestled among pine trees, on the banks of a huge lake, I did not let the chance to enjoy the clear open night sky go in vain. Three of my friends were as interested as me and so, despite the cold weather, we decided to spend at least half the night on the wide open terrace before our room so that we can just look at the big starry sky spreading all across the lake. The trees were spraying a cool wintry breeze on us. But that didn’t stop us. We got our blankets out, switched off the terrace lights, lay down together, and just gazed up at the beauty of the night. And then, it started. Shooting stars!! And not just one or two or three! We saw some more than fifteen of those, not all together though. The others found it hard to believe. But they were not to blame, because without a clear sky and some patient focus, shooting stars may be hard to find. But it is worth it. So, when you get some time, take the chance to look at the stars up there. They will surprise you, heal you, inspire you and remind you how small we are compared to the vast universe. And not just that, you might even be able to make a wish upon a shooting star! 

Exciting times!

Two exciting developments have happened today! One is that our website is ready enough for people to look at it. Check it out at explorablestory.org! There's still lots more content to be added, of course, but hopefully what's there will give everyone a clearer picture of what we're hoping to achieve with the resource. If after seeing the website you fancy writing or translating a page, please get in touch at contact@explorablestory.org!

Secondly, a lady named Joanna Grace has produced a sensory story version of our story. Someone on Twitter linked me to an article about her stories thinking I might be interested - I was! Joanna says:
 "I'm very pleased with how it's worked out in the sensory translation. I've tried creating more abstract sensory stories before and you always end up compromising on the stimuli, but for this one I've begun and ended the story with the students being asked to quite literally explore, and having various items to find at the end will provide a child with profound disabilities a way of expressing what motivates them, in a way that is meaningful to them: if they pick up a sound making toy, and a furry toy and drop the first in order to explore the second more carefully with their fingers they're clearly saying "I'm motivated to find interesting things to touch", where as if they push the smell away from them and vocalise as the sound is made they're saying "I want to find ways of making noise." I was surprised and delighted at how well it worked at this level and I can see many teachers of students with profound disabilities having adventures in their classrooms using this as a basis."
 I really hope that children with PMLD enjoy their experiences and their teachers find a way of sharing this with others via our gallery. 

On Sunday, we'll be heading to Germany to share the project with people at the UNAWE workshop 2013. I'm looking forward to getting some feedback (and trying to recruit a few more content writers,) from the astronomical educators who'll be there!

Mini Hack Day September 28th 2013!

I admit it! There's far too much work in this project for just our little team to handle - we need to expand! We need more volunteers (we're all volunteers too, so it's all fair!) to get more information and more languages. Our web designer is currently programming a brand new version of the site complete with the ability to write information for a range of abilities of reader!

What do we need?
Volunteers with good knowledge to share, willing to write one or multiple pages of information on:

•  Science, 
• Technology, 
• Engineering, 
• Maths, 
• Exploration or 
• Space

 - a maximum of 4 paragraphs (per ability level) for each topic and all in easily understood language!
Volunteers who are bi-lingual (with English being one of the languages spoken and the other being their native language)

•  to lead local teams of translators or page writers in their native language.
• or to help write or translate pages.

Volunteers who are creative (with access to plasticine or other modelling clay)

• to create artwork to complement each page and make the site more appealing to young children.

If you would like to get involved email us at contact@explorablestory.org.
See the Hack Day Prezi for more information at: http://prezi.com/wsyv-dvnxyqe/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Join us online globally for the hack day on 28th September but if you can't join us virtually during that time you can still join us at another time.
 

To do:

It's officially Summer here (the teacher's definition - school has finished!) so I've finally got some time to get things done with fewer children around to throw tangents into my thought processes. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy wandering along the tangents that children find - it's called child-led learning and often ends in wonderful discoveries and interesting things. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the almost 300 children I'll be working with in September make of my outdoor classrooms!

But I've got a few weeks where I can take a break from thinking about school and activities that suit the weather, so I'm going to try to get lots more work done on the project. My to do list is stretching every time I visit it, more things spring to mind in order to get the site accessible to all. For the moment, I'm going to focus upon making the site work for English speaking children aged 7-11 (the ones I have most experience working with). While I'm working on that, other members of the team around the world are working on versions in their native languages - sourcing websites with useful information and making them into links in our explore directory.

Another team member is currently working on an interactive game based around the concept of exploring to find information - I have a feeling it may be a while before it's ready to trial, but the bits I've seen look like they're going to be lots of fun! There is talk of making the game programmable by children so that they can create their own "room" of their local area for people around the world to explore - can't wait to see how that pans out!

If the trial is successful, we're hoping to rewrite information in multiple levels so that it is more accessible to younger children and those with learning difficulties but also so it can offer learning opportunities for children at the other end of the spectrum without the need to trawl through pages of information written for adults - a fairly monumental job! If you'd like to practice explaining things to younger audiences, drop us an email at contact@explorablestory.org

Well,  I've officially done task one on my list; write a (long overdue) blog entry. It's now time to begin task two!

So we took a week off work...

The whole team is made up of volunteers, all with full-time jobs elsewhere. After a few weeks of working late into the night / getting up incredibly early, the school holidays came. A few of the other team members also took the week off, so we thought we'd use the time to do some exploring of our own! Here's what we got up to:

We had a meeting to discuss our future plans for the project - while eating ice-cream and walking around this reservoir. The good news is, everyone is still very keen to keep working on the project.

Inspired by the hardware hackers at Space Apps, we began the first team efforts to reach space, using vitamin tablets, water and Sugru (grown-up plasticine). Perhaps we may help in the efforts to #LaunchJon!

 We discovered that the main engines of the Sugruz1 rocket weren't quite powerful enough...

 

 

...so we helped her gain 4000 ft in altitude using non-photoshop cheating!

Designs are being drawn up for Sugruz2, a lighter weight design with 4 booster rockets attached.

But for now, it's back to work. We'll be back working on the website in the evenings too!

Making connections

The whole project started as a way to get children to connect with science in a relevant, enjoyable and meaningful way. Then connections started to be made between adults, people joined the team in Exeter, followed by a few in India. It wasn't long before I was receiving emails from Canada and Mexico. As someone who's inner child has the vast majority of the brain, I found this all to be very, very exciting!

On the Sunday evening of Space Apps, the team were talking over Skype - still buzzing from the event and reluctant to get some much needed sleep. We were talking about the story and how it was interesting to see the different interpretations emerging in the different languages. Before the weekend, I had absolutely no idea that there was no word for unicorn in Greek! It wasn't long before the idea of using the beginning of the story as a starting point to compare different cultures came about. The great thing about the ending of the story is that no matter which culture a person is from, they are all united in the human exploration of space. We spend far too long on this planet, dividing and defining ourselves, we sometimes forget that we are all from one species.

Our website invites children (in our trial schools to begin with,) to read the story and interpret it in any way they wish. This could be a form of artwork, creative writing or even a piece of non-fiction work. We are hoping that by allowing children to explore each others' interpretations of the story, they will not only begin to learn about and understand some of the differences in the world, but they will also spot the many similarities between children globally. They all enjoy playing when they get the chance; not to mention they are all fascinated by and inquisitive about the world around them. When given the chance to think about things, they all have dreams - one day perhaps they will be able to help each other fulfil them.

If the trial is successful, we hope to develop the website further, taking note of feedback, to make it more accessible to a wider number of children, whilst being a safe environment for them to share and explore.

London trip

By Sophia, Tom and Oliver.

It was tiring getting up at half past 5 this morning, especially as I couldn't get to sleep last night. I had to get up so early so that I could get ready and drive to the train station ready for 7am. I was excited because I like London.

On the train we are writing a script for the animation and are thinking up a new story to make out of plasticine and are making very good progress and its about a walrus and his friend  the narwhal and he tells him all about a treasure chest and walrus  flies into space on a rocket to find the treasure. We are doing lots of work even when were not at school!

Hi Oliver talking, writing a script at the moment about Walrus the walrus, who is on a quest to find treasure. Sophia, Tom and I will use this script for the green screen. Walrus is going to meet the curiosity rover on Mars.

Meanwhile,  Sophia is writing  a script for the green screen, its about an interview with the girl who wants to find a unicorn and will never give up trying to find it. With the green screen we are going to interact with the backgrounds ( that Tom found ) and the plasticine models. For example we are going use the script for the news readers to ask the plasticine model questions.

Thank you for reading this blog we hoped you enjoyed it and have learnt more about what we are doing.