As part of an authentic learning experience high school students from the Australian Islamic College in Thornlie spoke to NASA personnel Lisa Leech via Skype earlier this month.
On June 15 students, parents and teachers packed into a classroom and sat in front of a large projector as Ms Leech video-called them from her home in Houston wearing her Mission Control t-shirt.
The students greeted her with the traditional Islamic greeting ‘Salaam-Alaikum’ before asking her questions, which included ‘What are the chances of Earth being hit by an asteroid?’, ‘What are some of the risks of going into space?’, ‘Is there life on Mars?’ and ‘What happens if there is an emergency in space?’
Ms Leech answered all the questions with passion and enthusiasm.
With almost 30-years of experience working at NASA Ms Leech was hired a few days after the Challenger accident in 1986.
“We spent three years trying to figure out what went wrong, safety is a top priority for us,” she said.
Ms Leech said she has spoken to many schools before about working at NASA and about space and said NASA’s biggest achievement was how the organisation had so many people from all over the world working together.
“We have gotten the world to talk to one another,” she said.
“That’s what we should be doing, talking to each other and working together.”
Australian Islamic College teacher Suriani Abdul Rahman said it had taken more than 45 emails and numerous phone calls to set up the event.
“This was a first for the college,” she said.
“I’m so glad the students were able to experience this and hopefully learn from it and be inspired.”
Teacher Idroz Shah said the objective of the video call was to allow students to propel their learning experience beyond the classroom and engage in dialogue with officials from NASA on the topic of space exploration.
“This activity was the first of its kind for the school in adopting new methods of classroom teaching through the use of technology,” he said.
“Hopefully the students will engage in critical thinking by breaking down the physical walls of the classroom and taking their learning to a new level.”
