MO-7: Envisioning Your Role
Teamwork makes the dream work, and this is especially true at NASA. While astronauts get a lot of attention, it takes hundreds of other roles all working together to complete a successful NASA Mission. In this MO, each team member will tell us about their dream role at NASA.
- Access to a computer
- Art supplies (or graphic design software)
- Graphic novel templates (optional)
- Video recording devices if optioning for video interview option
- Engage: An activity where students match NASA roles to the Artemis ROADS III Mission Objectives
- Explain: Resources and templates to help students understand how to write a graphic novel
- Elaborate: Resources to help students identify and map community needs to their envisioned careers
- Extend: A video planning worksheet
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to work for NASA? In this mission, your team will explore different careers related to the Artemis ROADS III Mission Objectives, imagining yourself in one of these roles in the future.
Start by exploring career options using the Career Catalog from Lesson 7 of the Companion Course. You can also use other resources to learn about more NASA careers. Each team member should pick one career that matches their interests and values—one they’d like to explore further.
For the chosen career, investigate:
- What the daily tasks are like.
- The type of education needed.
- Other skills or knowledge you could bring from your community, family, hobbies, or interests.
- Salary and benefits, such as whether people in this job get to travel to interesting places.
Once you understand the role, imagine yourself in that career in the future. Think about:
- Where you went to school.
- How old you were when you got the job.
- Where you live and work now.
- What missions or projects you’ve worked on at NASA.
After envisioning your future role, your team can work together or individually to tell your story. You can do this through a graphic novel, a role-play video interview, or both. Use resources from Lesson 7, like templates and planning worksheets, to help create your story and understand how to build a plot with a dramatic arc.
Students should come up with examples of how their community could benefit from the career skills of their future role. For example, in a video interview a future engine might have the following be part of their story, “As a communications engineer, I learned how NASA uses antennas to connect and communicate with satellites. I used these skills to set up a dish network, providing faster and more reliable internet at my community’s public library.” You can see more examples in the Elaborate section of the Lesson 7 in the Companion Course.
As they work, teams should keep track of their results in their Science and Engineering Notebooks (SEN). At the end of the challenge teams will be asked to submit a Mission Development Log (MDL) to NESSP that shows how the students worked through the Mission Objective and summarizes their results. NESSP provides a Mission Development Log Template to help guide what teams should include in their MDL.
- Either graphic novel pages or video interviews (see details below) to describe each team member’s future role at NASA. The team should decide together whether to make a graphic novel or video interviews.
- If the team chooses to create a graphic novel, they can either write one story that includes all the career roles, or each team member can create their own separate graphic novel.
- One example from each team member of how they were able to help their community using the skills they gained in their future role. Alternatively, they can describe how they employed a skill learned in their community in their future career.
Graphic Novel Page
Create part of a graphic novel that shows “future you” working at your dream job at NASA. If you decide to do this as a team, show how the various roles you choose will work together.Be sure to include:
- Job title(s)
- The character(s) using their job skills to identify and/or solve a problem for NASA
Length requirements:
- Individual team member novels: 1 page.
- Combined team novels: Minimum 1 page, maximum 3 pages
Video Interview
Pretend that you are working in your dream NASA career. Record a video where someone interviews you about your job at NASA.Be sure to include:
- Job title
- What a typical day looks like and what skills they use Steps they took to get a job at NASA
Career Highlight: Planetary Scientist
JWST Instrument Scientist
NASA Test Pilot: Day in the Life
Length requirements:
- Individual team member interviews: 2:30 minutes maximum.
- Combined team interviews: 5:00 minutes maximum