Learning Through Media Arts - Imagine Mars

       This blog will present a practical example for how media arts integration works from my own school ArtLAB in 9th grade. We want these young students to learn to be imaginative, creative and self-resourceful. We want to show them worlds of possibilities, while they learn more about their own worlds and themselves. We have partnered with our local space agency, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)/NASA in a STEM/STEAM, design-based project called “Imagine Mars”. The driving challenge is for students to “create a sustainable community on Mars” and finally present their findings to the scientists there in a final, rigorous review. We want to structure this over the school year.

Through some initial presentations by the collaborating teachers with introductory media from JPL, student questions are generated. This initiates the whole process of inquiry. Curiosity is the beginning of the student-centered learning process. What do they need to know in order to accomplish this seemingly impossible task? The students have many questions, of course. What’s it like on Mars? How do they get there? What exactly is meant by “sustainable”, and “community”? What kinds of resources do they have in order to accomplish this? What is JPL’s role? Soon they are imagining the answers to their problems, or at least making lists of the things they need to consider, research and test in order to reach their goal, which we can bring to a video conference with the Mars scientists at JPL. They immediately begin to own the learning process.  

       This whole project is very broad and transdisciplinary. It is not based solely in “media arts”, which is the point of “media arts integration”. We can start to blur the lines between disciplines and emphasize the higher order meaning and learning of the project as elevated by media arts processes.

       To get to the final result of a “sustainable community on Mars”, students have to know what a community is. In other words, they need to study their own community, as well as the factors of travelling to and living on Mars. How does a community sustain itself over time? What is necessary to form that kind of community? And what are the most essential components that can be retained in such an inhospitable, alien, distant environment? The question ultimately becomes, “What makes life livable”?

    Through this investigation, students will understand:

• Integrative Science - a comparison of Mars vs Earth - environment, physics, resources, etc.
• Sustainability - how do people keep their communities alive over time? How are we learning to use renewable resources and to conserve energy on Earth?
• Community - What is a community? What is absolutely necessary to create an ongoing group of people? How do we not only live, but enjoy life? What is the nature of culture itself?
• Design - How do we create things that have never existed before? How do we make sure they work? Are they really livable and durable? What are the little things in life (e.g. color, sound, diversity) that we will realize that we need and how do we include them?

     The project can involve a number of activities, including investigating and presenting findings on the Mars environment; prototyping various technologies (landers, base-camp, vehicles, clothing, physical exercises, etc) to be used on Mars; creating Mars news programs; creative and technical writing assignments; gamifying portions of the assignment, etc. The project culminates in a virtual 3D design project using Google Sketch-up.

       Over time, students actually come to understand the nature of their own world, their own community and environment and the importance of sustaining them. To learn about Mars is to understand the nature of Earth and our relationship with it. The arts and sciences are naturally intertwining and interwoven as STEAM within this kind of inquiry-based, open-ended project. This project could potentially unify even four years of high school study! Actually, perhaps it should become the standard high school curriculum!

      The media arts aspects of this particular project can be:

What is media? What media are we seeing in order to research and find things? What does this media convey and how does it convey it? What media can we make about our project to exhibit to our community and partners what we are doing and learning? How do we use media, design and art to imagine and create our worlds? What are the capacities and limitations of these various mediums and technologies? What media makes up a community? What is the function of media, design and art in a community? What is creativity and expression? How are they vital to communities and individual well being? What is the nature of the systems of media production and presentation? etc.

      The media arts forms can be:

Documentation, promotional media, informational presentations, graphic design, scientific vs. artistic photography, aesthetics, virtual design, animation, special effects, websites, website production, interactivity in virtual design, programming, modeling and prototyping, architecture, industrial design, environmental design, game design, sound - ambient, soundtracks, music for effect, music as cultural necessity, etc, etc.

       In reflecting on this integrative project, we see here that media arts has very diverse aspects and uses as an interconnective "hub" discipline. It is an underlying force for bringing all of these seemingly disconnected components and aspects into a unifying, active environment of exploration and invention. We live and learn in a multimedia and “media arts” world, where we can imagine anything, and what we imagine can become real.

      Thus, media arts serves a central, integrative role within 21st Century learning. Due to its ubiquity and social force within our culture, it is necessary for all students to understand and consider the aspects of media arts in how we understand, represent and create our current and future worlds. That is why these media arts standards are vital to our current educational transitions.