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| Last Wednesday, with the launch of Artemis II, four astronauts headed to the moon–the first human-crewed mission to the moon’s orbit since 1972. In the deluge of our post-spring break weeks, I didn’t even realize it was happening until I saw FB posts about where people were last Wednesday when they were watching it.
As a result of my ROMO (realization of missing out—is that a thing?) about the launch, I have been faithfully checking in on their progress ever since. If you haven’t squeezed NASA videos into your April yet, I recommend them as the April teaching inspiration that we didn’t know we needed so badly. While none of us at Denison is taking our students on a mission to see the far side of the moon this semester, we can take hope and energy from the ways that the Artemis II crew members are educating their earthbound audience. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen are actively inspiring watchers and listeners by sharing their own observations and reactions. They are teaching anyone who is interested about how they are doing their jobs. And they are waxing poetic about the common humanity of the earth’s population. As we head into the final month of the semester, I encourage you to feed off of some of the NASA energy and to share it with your students. Completing the semester on a positive and successful note may not be rocket science, but it can be a challenge for both students and faculty. Sometimes we all need a little extra encouragement. “5 reasons why the Artemis mission is a big deal,” an essay on phys.org, concludes by saying, “humans should be proud of our ability to do difficult things.” In the coming weeks, don’t forget to remind your students that they, too, are humans who can do difficult things. |