Proposal

Part A:

Solution Title: **A Martian Constitution Wiki** Project/Solution Summary This project uses Astronomy and Government students to create a collaborative docu-ment which consists of background information about living on Mars and proposes a constitution for a future colony.

B: Problem: **CLASSROOM CURRICULUM NEED** Pretests created by project teachers and based on California Science and Government standards were administered to current astronomy and government students to assess their respective knowledge of information within and between these two subjects. Pre-tests included questions about the nature of Mars as a planet and the structure and function of parts of the Constitution. The results show a need for improved achievement  by both groups of students in both subjects and  for more effective content delivery.

__Percentage of Questions Correct on Pretest__
 * ||Astro scores ||Govt scores ||
 * Astro students ||74% ||40% ||
 * Govt students ||46% ||66% ||

As expected each group of students did better in the subject in which they are enrolled. However all groups show room for significant improvement in both subjects.

The standards targeted by this assessment and this project are Fundamental Principles of Democracy as Expressed in the US Constitution (specifically 12.1.3,4,5, and 6) in government, and Earth’s Place in the Universe (specifically 1a,c,d,f) in Earth Science. A classroom exam was administered in early fall 2008 measuring government students' comprehension of the structure and function of the United States Constitution. The exam results established a definitive need for an alternative curricular approach to these concepts as the average score on this exam was only 50.2%. In astronomy essay questions on the planets consistently reveal students’ confusion about the size and sur-face conditions on Mars, such as the belief that the atmosphere’s weight causes gravity. C. SOLUTION: **GRANT PROPOSAL ** Our proposal is that the government students will learn more about the real U.S. Consti-tution and the surface of terrestrial planets if given a project-based task of creating a constitution suitable for a Martian colony. The hypothesis we are testing is that project-based learning can assist students to perform better on standards-based assessments related to the project. In part one of the project, during March of the current academic year, the astronomy students will construct a series of reference pages on the conditions on the surface of Mars including atmosphere, availability of water, radiation, natural resources, and pos-sible habitable sites for colonization. This information will be organized into wiki pages (similar to Wikipedia, editable only by students in the course) created and updated by small teams of students responsible for the background research and experiments (as necessary) to establish conditions on the surface. The second half of the project will consist of government students using this background during April and May as source material to write a constitution (also on the wiki) which not only must address the physical needs of the colonists (for example, is air free? what happens if there is not enough oxygen for the number of colonists?  Is there birth control enforced by laws to limit the population?) but also addresses the rights afforded citizens in earthly countries. Students will use computers provided by the school for writing the collaborative documents. Some computers with recently upgraded operating systems need content creation software such as MS Word updated to run properly. The two teacher leaders will collaborate extensively on the design of the wiki, and will need to work together in each classroom to see how the web pages interact. This will require the purchase of two laptops for use by the teachers in setting up the web pages. The grant will also be used to purchase necessary computer connectivity equipment and appropriate software upgrades to allow the management of the classroom comput-ers. The use of technology in this manner allows multiple groups of students to collabo-rate without physically merging the classrooms, which might not even be possible if they do not meet at the same time. Both students and teachers will use digital cameras to take pictures of students at work and models of colonies, dioramas of Mars, and pre-pare posters about the project for display at conferences and on the web site. A second cohort of students will revise the project in Spring 2009.

D. **EVALUATION**

Measurable Outcomes

•	Increased scores (15% increase or better) on the teacher-created standards-based post-test. The post test will be administered in May 2008. •	Production of a publicly available wikipage which describes the project and its goals, and presents the solutions and information generated by this project. •	Several hundred hits on the student-created wiki site. •	Positive student evaluations at the conclusion of the project. •	Positive teacher evaluations following presentations about the project at work-shops.

Sharing Results in School and District We will make presentations within the departments we represent at our school site. We will also present our project at the California Partnership Academy Conference in San Diego in March of 2008. We plan to present a workshop on the use of wikipages at the East Bay Cue Conference in 2009. At a presentation to the School Board we will pre-sent our project and offer to train other teachers on how we set up this interdisciplinary project. There will also be presentations at regional meetings of the various astronomi-cal societies visited by students every year. E. **PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT NEEDS/GOALS AND LEADERSHIP STRENGTHS** Government teacher needs instruction on how to set up and manage a wiki site. This will be provided by the astronomy teacher who has done this already for a different pro-ject. Information about the surface conditions on Mars will be provided via a special workshop conducted at the school about Mars in December 2007. Astronomy teacher needs instruction on how the Constitution was developed and structured and a review of state standards in government. This will be provided by the government teacher. Both teachers have collaborated in curriculum development for both astronomy and government classes in use today. The astronomy teacher has conducted numerous workshops on curriculum development and has written a textbook in use in several schools, and used the textbook to conduct curriculum writing workshops for other dis-tricts. Both teachers have committed to completing this project at whatever level of support is available. The project will be implemented in their classrooms, and whatever effort is required to ensure the wikipages are accessible to students in the classroom will be  done. Site Administrator will provide two release days for teachers to spend training each other out of the classroom. The astronomy teacher has extensive technology experience and has set up classroom networks and writes an online educational technology column, and has won state level technology awards. The government teacher collaborated with another teacher on the development of the curriculum currently in use by all government teachers at our high school.