All Souls Catholic School Takes On Out of this World Project

As our nation’s attention focuses on Mars with the landing of NASA’s Perseverance Rover, a group of All Souls Catholic School students recently brought the Red Planet closer to home with a “Mars Colony Challenge.” Deemed the ultimate project-based STEM competition, the Mars Colony Challenge was the culmination of a four-month assignment that challenged four middle school teams – Mega, Alpha, Rhos, and Sigma (MARS) – to work in teams to build a colony model that would not only allow its inhabitants to survive, but also thrive, on Mars. 

The assignment was part of the school’s newly implemented Applied Math and Science class, an invitation-only extracurricular class taught by Dr. Kim Craft, a professor at Full Sail University in Orlando. Twelve students were tasked to design a Mars-base camp habitation module that would provide basic necessities such as water, food, oxygen, and power in a comfortable environment for the three-year roundtrip it would take to get to Mars. They had to also take in account the crew’s physical, mental and spiritual well-being, all on a $1 billion budget.

Dr. Craft said the idea of the colonization of Mars is not an out-of-this-world idea. Scientists have talked about it for years, especially as concern as our own planet’s population continues to grow.

“Life on Mars was something to galvanize the students around because it is such a timely topic,” she said. “This project allowed students to study astronomy, physics, even budgets on Excel spreadsheets. They got a chance to see the cutting edge of technology — everything from robotics to artificial intelligence and machinery in preparation for this project.”

“I really enjoyed the hands-on research,” said Luis, a 7th grade student who aspires to be a structural or mechanical engineer. “I was testing our chemical compositions before the competition was finalized.”

The students presented their work to a panel of judges, professionals in the fields of engineering and imagineering, who scored their work in a number of categories. Judges Bill Robinson, a former engineer/imagineer at Walt Disney Imaginary Worldwide; Paul Vogt, senior director of Product Line Management at Seagate; and Scott Von de Houten, a distinguished engineer and architect at CISCO Systems, said the quality of the students’ work made it difficult to select a winner, but in the end, they gave first place honor to Team Sigma.

“All of the projects were very well done and high caliber,” Robinson said. “The kids knew their stuff.”

“I think they did a great job, especially considering we have the pandemic going on,” Dr. Craft said. “Despite some difficulties early on, the students maintained their enthusiasm and their persistence. It really is an unbelievable accomplishment not only that they put together and assimilated the technical information, but also turned this into almost a theatrical production. They had to learn scripts, staging and queuing. They helped with the design of the lighting and the décor. They really got their hands dirty with this one.”

Principal Barbara Schirard said that All Souls Catholic School has a solid reputation of graduating students who ultimately choose careers in engineering, science and medical fields. Creating a course that helped students further develop skills in these fields augmented the offerings at the school.

“We have a population of students who show promise in these fields. They show it in their math classes; they show it in the sciences,” she said. “To me, there is nothing like real-world experience. So we wanted to bring in people who live the careers that our students are interested in, to inspire, motivate, and cultivate them.”

“To have a college professor and head of a math department come in and teach them and walk them through this process, and to have respected members of the community that live this everyday as well, these kids have the opportunity to experience something that may be life changing for them,” Principal Schirard continued. “We wanted to offer to those students with these interests opportunities to grow beyond the classroom.”

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