![]() Step 3: Set the scenario explaining that the person making the pattern using the specified number of blocks is Mission Control and all others participating are Space Ship Crew Members. Step 2: Using the folders or books to block others’ views, one student in the group (or pair) constructs a pattern using the specified number of blocks. Suggestion: Start with two each of two different polygons. Step 1: Determine which blocks will be used for Game 1. Materials: Folders or books to serve as dividers, pattern blocks or tangrams Mission Control Games: (Originally published in Powerful Problem Solving, Heinemann 2013)įormat: Students working in pairs or groups of four. Make sure students are aware that Katherine Johnson, and other women at NASA at the time, went beyond the expectations to “invent the math” and be problem solvers.Įxplain that we are going to play a game that will encourage students to think about math in new ways, apply some problem-solving, and work on a version of the problem that Katherine Johnson went on to work on at NASA: how to communicate with the astronauts in space when some part of your communication has failed, and you need them to understand the geometry or rocket trajectory to get home again. ![]() ![]() Help students understand what role the women at NASA were hired to do (carry out the sort of calculations that calculators and computers now do, based on others’ instructions), how hard that work was, and also how it was different from what the white male engineers were expected to do (apply mathematical ideas in new ways to problems that no one had solved before). Lesson Launch: Play one or more trailers from the movie, Hidden Figures. Hidden Figures trailers: (particularly the second trailer, “Give or Take”įolders or books to put up between students to make a barrier to hide each other’s work during the “Mission Control” gameĮither tangram or pattern block pieces or graphs and graph paper, depending on which version of the “Mission Control” game you want students to play Finally they reflect on their experiences dealing with mathematical frustrations, and the ways that Katherine Johnson’s experiences as a Black woman might have helped prepare her to be a pioneer in her field. We are building a vibrant, innovative workforce that reflects a vast diversity of discipline and thought, embracing and nurturing all the talent we have available, regardless of gender, race or other protected status.Overview: Students discuss Hidden Figures and what it might have meant that Katherine Johnson had to “make new mathematics” where “there is no formula.” They play a game about communicating mathematical ideas across barriers, that may force them to “see beyond the numbers” and come up with new mathematics. Today, NASA is on an even more ambitious journey to Mars. In the 1960’s, NASA was on an ambitious journey to the moon, and the human computers portrayed in Hidden Figures helped get us there. With the human computers portrayed in Hidden Figures, NASA began leading the way in building a workforce as diverse as its mission-a workforce that will use the International Space Station to help put humans on Mars make exciting discoveries about our universe carry out research that will create greener, safer, quieter and faster air travel monitor the health of our home planet and develop cutting-edge technologies to explore our solar system and improve life on Earth. This is how we, as a nation, will take the next giant leap in exploration.Īs a world leader in science, aeronautics, space exploration and technology, NASA has a diverse mission that demands talent from every corner of America, and every walk of life. And our data shows progress is driven by questioning our assumptions and cultural prejudices-by embracing and nurturing all the talent we have available, regardless of gender, race or other protected status, to build a workforce as diverse as its mission. Today, NASA strives to make sure their legacy of inclusion and excellence lives on.Īs seen in the movie Hidden Figures, NASA has a long-standing cultural commitment to excellence that is largely driven by data, including data about our people. The victories for racial and gender rights were not achieved easily or quickly, and our work is not done. While the movie dramatizes some aspects, it is true to the struggles of the women at the center of the story. Hidden Figures is a movie based on actual events.
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