How to use the material
Solve space challenges using math and programming skills.
"Leia and the Tardigrades crack the space code" is a fictional story that addresses current Swedish space research. The story consists of five chapters where students can follow Leia and the Tardigrades on adventures in space, read facts about space and our own planet and solve various missions on the way to Mars. The material is produced by Kodcentrum, Mattecentrum och The Swedish Space Agency.
The students are allowed to follow the three Tardigrades Obi, Wan and Zen into space. They are sent up with the Swedish satellite Mats and should protect the satellite from colliding with space scrap before they continue their journey to Mars with the help of their friend Leia where they'll build an environmentally friendly gas station.
The material allows students to take part in the current space research. They get to know Tardigrades that have even in reality survived visits to space - without a spacesuit. They get to learn about the planets and how satellites help us on earth, about environmental pollution, weightlessness and much more.
As the main characters in our story are the first creatures that set foot on the planet Mars, students are also given the opportunity to reason and reflect on how we build societies, what law and justice are and who should decide.
Student materials and teacher guidance
Here you download the material as PDFs:
In the student material you'll find the five chapters and missions of the story. The missions consist of factual and discussion questions about space, mathematics tasks that you can print out for students, and programming tasks that you do here on the Kodboken with the Scratch encoder tool.
In the teacher's guide, you'll find suggestions for lesson plans and how you can use the story and the tasks in your teaching. The material connects to the syllabus for primary years 4–6 in mathematics, technology, science and social studies and can be used with advantage in subject integrated.
Math tasks that suit everyone
Mathematics tasks available for each mission comes in three different levels. The calculations and the way to the solution are different for each level and the degree of difficulty increases the higher the level is. It is important to point out that the solution or the final result is identical independent level. For example, mission 1, the Space Rocket has three levels. If the level increases one step, the mathematical difficulty also increases. However the final result of space rocket that is built will be exactly the same for all students, regardless of the level they worked on.
The level classification for all mathematics tasks allows the material to remain flexible in a class where the students' level of knowledge differs, then the solution is always identical and all students go on to the next task with the same conditions. The material also remains flexible between the classes, as it is possible to adapt based on what a student can do in class 4 compared to what a student can do in class 6.
As a teacher, we recommend that you look through the different levels in advance and decide which level or levels your class should work with.
Program in Scratch
The programming tasks are performed in the Scratch encoding tool developed at the American university MIT. Scratch teaches the basics of programming by using pre-programmed visual blocks which are built together as a puzzle. Scratch is free to use and is available in Swedish and many other languages. It is available as a web version and as a downloaded offline version and you can use the tool without logging in.
The programming tasks of the space code has different levels of difficulty where mission 1 serves as an introduction for those of you who have never used Scratch before and thereafter missions 2–4 have an increasinglly degree of difficulty. Select the mission you think is suitable to do with your students.
If you have not previously programmed with your students, you will find tips on how to get started as a teacher here. The introduction to Scratch is written by our sister organization Kodcentrum and it is on their educational platform Kodboken.se.