We're just wrapping up making topographical maps by buidling a land out of playdough in a tupperware container and then mapping its contours as we add incremental amounts of water. The students did a wonderful job with a complex project and their finished maps are beginning to take shape with symbols and colors layered on top of the topographical information.
We took a break from our maps to discuss the beginning of our next project. What I had slated as a fifteen minute discussion about the planet on which our countries would be founded expanded into a passionate debate that lasted more than an hour. At issue was the tilt of our planet's axis and the length of its year (how large was its orbit around the sun) and the length of its day (how often it spins).
Through the debate, students came to understand much more deeply how our own seasons, revolution and rotation work and how that connects to our daily lives. "If we had a 90 degree axis tilt we would have crazy season!" "Yeah, like total darkness for three months in the winter!" "And summer would be super hot and the sun wouldn't set!!" (There was a group who loved the idea of trying to create a society that could survive such extremes, even before they thought about the storms that would occur during the change of the seasons.)
Another group, however, found that whole idea terrifying. While they wanted more change than a zero degree axis would afford, they thought the earth's 23.5 degrees was just about right. In the end, the two groups thought their ideas were not reconcialable and we now have two planets in our sun's Goldilocks zone (which one astute student pointed out would probably have to be re-named since our cultures didn't have a Goldilocks story but would probably have a different myth about things that are "just right.")
Once the groups split, student leaders continued the discussion to try to come to a consensus on the lenght of the day. The 90 degree group ended up with 48 hours and the "earth" group decided upon 27 hours. Both groups were intrigued by the notion that dividing the day into 24ths is arbitrary and therefor, even though their day may be 48 earth hours, they could still divide that time any way they wanted. They're leaning toward 100ths to match their 100 minutes in an hour and 100 seconds in a minute.
What pleased me most was the passion with which the students approached this discussion of axial tilt and orbital period. Sure we could just memorize the facts but it's so much more fun to need the facts (and need to understand the facts) in order to make a decision you care a lot about.
Students are hungry to continue and are already starting to pick the latitude on the planet where their country will be (and thinking about the impact of that decision on their country's climate)
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