Theory
Define quantities, units, and the comparison you will calculate. Stage intent: tree.
For teachers
Prepare a mission
Everything you need to run the lesson: the prompts for this academic depth, the diagnostic answer key, the misconceptions to watch for, and the truth boundary to hold.
Choose the mission and depth
Find out what went wrong.
This mission came home with almost nothing. The spacecraft was healthy at launch, the payload worked, and the ground station was listening - and still, hardly any data arrived. Your team has the mission readings. Work out what happened.
Pilot lesson
What to say at Grades 9–10
These prompts come from the academic layer, so they change with the depth you selected.
Prediction
Predict a quantitative difference between baseline and candidate.
Running the Twin
Execute baseline/candidate Twin runs and export a table or plot. Runtime remains the frozen Twin; this plan does not execute physics.
Checkpoint
Confirm the calculated difference against the mission criterion.
Analysis
Calculate, model, compare, and test using simulated evidence only. Evidence intent: fault evidence chain + diagnosis + recovery plan/test result.
Engineering decision
Recommend the candidate with quantitative support and stated uncertainty.
Limitation
Name at least one frozen-model limitation that this experiment cannot answer.
Provenance
Keep simulated, simulated_sensor, estimator_state, derived, reference, and measured distinct. Never label simulated as measured.
Diagnostic answer key
A spacecraft battery falls very low. What does a well-designed spacecraft do?
- ✓ Shut down what it can to protect itself
- · Keep working exactly as before
- · Send its data faster to save time
Timing
One session of 55–70 minutes. Adjust freely — the sequence matters more than the clock.
| When | Stage | What you are doing |
|---|---|---|
| 0 → 5–6 min | Mission | Set the role, objective, mission question, and success criterion. |
| 5–6 → 17–21 min | Preparation | Diagnostic, theory, and a written prediction before any run. |
| 17–21 → 20–25 min | Readiness | Learners confirm the local formative gate after preparation passes. |
| 20–25 → 30–38 min | Operate | Run the bounded baseline, then the candidate where comparison is disclosed. |
| 30–38 → 47–60 min | Evidence | Inspect provenance, select evidence, decide, state a limitation, and complete the formative assessment. |
| 47–60 → 53–68 min | Complete | Review the result band, reflect, and finalize local practice at any band. |
| 53–68 → 55–70 min | Recognition | Explain the local record and the separate future verified-recognition boundary. |
Misconceptions to watch for
Authored lesson design — what a class reliably gets wrong here, and where you can catch it. Not a claim about any learner.
“The data was lost because the storage filled up.”
The readings show storage was never the constraint. Send them back to the battery trace — this is the most common wrong turn in the mission.
Watch: evidence — The mission readings for this run · Code: cause_effect_or_control_logic_reversal
“Collecting more often will make up for the data that was lost.”
Collecting costs the same power that sending needs. Ask what happens to the sending budget when collection goes up.
Watch: the decision option "Collect more often to make up for the lost data" · Code: constraint_budget_or_tradeoff_omission
“The spacecraft shut things down, so it malfunctioned.”
Shutting down to protect itself is the design working. Separate what the spacecraft did from whether the mission got what it wanted.
Watch: the "safe" diagnostic · Code: truth_estimate_measurement_confusion
Reflection and extension
What a good reflection contains
What clue separated the root cause from the most obvious symptom, and what evidence would confirm it in a real mission?
- Names one decisive change rather than listing several.
- Rules storage out using the readings, instead of assuming it.
- Traces the fault back to power, and says which reading carries that.
If they finish early, or go further
- Write the change as a rule (Grades 9–10 and above)
Turn your single decisive change into a rule the spacecraft could follow on its own, with a condition it can test and an action it can take.
- What would have warned you? (Grade 8 and above)
Identify the earliest point in the readings where this outcome became predictable, and say what a ground team watching live should have noticed there.
Facilitation and the truth boundary
While they work
- Learners often blame storage. The readings show storage was never the problem - press them back to the battery.
- The improved policy exists in the runtime and is deliberately not shown. Diagnosing is the mission; do not hand over the answer.
- Ask for one change, not a list. Naming the decisive change is the skill.
Can the learner trace battery to safe mode to lost downlink, and name a single decisive change?
Hold this line
- These mission readings are produced by a model. No real mission was flown.
- This is a teaching operations run and is not an operational assurance result.
- This lesson does not establish how a real mission would be recovered.
Home mission
Home mission: the flat phone
Think of a time a phone went flat before you could send something. Write down what was being used up, what warned you, and what one habit would have prevented it. Then say which of those three a spacecraft engineer would build into the rules.
Tell us what did not work
Ten questions, answered locally. Nothing is submitted or tracked — you download the file and send it if you want to.
Informal educator feedback
This local-first form contains the ten approved pilot-review questions. It does not submit, track, or store data remotely. Optional name/contact should be handled outside this form only if a reviewer volunteers it.