CNES and now ESERO France have been relaying the “Mission X: Train like an astronaut” educational challenge in France for many years, initiated by NASA in 2011 and now piloted by ESA, the British space agency and ESERO UK since 2018.
This international project has been an unqualified success with French teachers of pupils aged 8 to 12, and France is consistently one of the most involved countries every year, with an extremely high level of participation in each mission by a French ESA astronaut aboard the international space station: almost 30,000 pupils in 2021 with Thomas Pesquet of Alpha mission!
Astronauts and sport in the spotlight in France
A number of upcoming school, space, and sports events in France point to an ever brighter future for this challenge, including:
- The introduction of 30′ of daily physical activity in elementary school
- The pilot phase of adding 2 hours of sports per week in middle schools
- The appointment of 2 French astronauts to the new ESA astronaut cohort: Sophie Adenot and Arnaud Prost
- 2023 French rugby World cup
- Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games
CNES and the French education: a fruitful collaboration
In response to a request from ESERO France, a CNES/Education Nationale (Toulouse Academy) working group was set up and met at CNES on January 30, 2023 to propose an upgrade of some of Mission X’s activity sheets to better meet the needs of French school curricula, while taking advantage of current space and sports events to contextualize students’ learning in a fun and motivating way.
The teachers, inspectors, and educational advisors in this working group were able to discover the activities of CADMOS (Centre d’Aide au Développement des Activités en Micropesanteur et des Opérations Spatiales), accompanied by Rémi Canton, head of this department and project manager for the Alpha mission. CADMOS is responsible for preparing and operating scientific and technological experiments in microgravity, today for the ISS (and parabolic flights) and tomorrow for the Gateway lunar station.
Sébastien Rouquette, Head of Parabolic Flight Campaigns at CNES, also spoke at length with each of the 4 workshops set up for the day, to provide the working group with contextual information on space activities and manned flight in particular, from mission preparation through to return to Earth after a stay in space, as well as the scientific elements needed to understand these activities.
The themes addressed during the day (physical and collaborative training on the ground and in the pool, plant cultivation and nutrition) produced extremely rich initial results, combining transdisciplinarity, the scientific approach, critical thinking, and collaborative work, differentiation and inclusion, sustainable development objectives, oral and written communication in French and foreign languages, and a playful and inspiring context… All in line with the knowledge and skills objectives required by school curricula, in proposals that are both ready to use and leave room for individual ideas for implementation.
The work will continue over the coming months to be tested in pilot classes, with the aim of offering it at the start of the 2023 school year and highlighting it with the help of major sporting events and space news 2023-2024.
To find out more, visit the Mission X project page!
