Theory
Define quantities, units, and the comparison you will calculate. Stage intent: differences.
For teachers
Prepare a mission
Everything you need to run the lesson: the prompts for this academic depth, the diagnostic answer key, the misconceptions to watch for, and the truth boundary to hold.
Choose the mission and depth
Did you watch it long enough?
A model can be perfectly correct and still let you reach a wrong conclusion, if you stop watching too early. Your team will run the same spacecraft twice, changing nothing but how long you look, and test whether a conclusion drawn from the first run survives the second.
Pilot lesson
What to say at Grades 9–10
These prompts come from the academic layer, so they change with the depth you selected.
Prediction
Predict a quantitative difference between baseline and candidate.
Running the Twin
Execute baseline/candidate Twin runs and export a table or plot. Runtime remains the frozen Twin; this plan does not execute physics.
Checkpoint
Confirm the calculated difference against the mission criterion.
Analysis
Calculate, model, compare, and test using simulated evidence only. Evidence intent: model/hardware correlation report + discrepancy analysis + V&V conclusion.
Engineering decision
Recommend the candidate with quantitative support and stated uncertainty.
Limitation
Name at least one frozen-model limitation that this experiment cannot answer.
Provenance
Keep simulated, simulated_sensor, estimator_state, derived, reference, and measured distinct. Never label simulated as measured.
Diagnostic answer key
A measurement is repeatable and correct. Does that make it sufficient?
- ✓ Not necessarily - it depends on the claim being made
- · Yes, correct measurements are always sufficient
- · Only if it was taken twice
Timing
One session. Adjust freely — the sequence matters more than the clock.
| When | Stage | What you are doing |
|---|---|---|
| 0–10 min | Mission brief and outcomes | Set the mission question and the success criterion. |
| 10–20 | Diagnostic | Surface prior ideas. No score — this is for you, not them. |
| 20–35 | Visual theory | Work the concept visual. Ask for the idea in their own words. |
| 35–45 | Prediction | Every learner commits in writing before any run. |
| 45–60 | Twin investigation | Baseline first, then the candidate case. |
| 60–70 | Evidence and decision | Compare, choose, and state one limitation. |
| 70–80 | Assessment and result | Formative only. Collect the written reasoning. |
| Home | Home mission | Software-only extension. No hardware, no account. |
Facilitation and the truth boundary
While they work
- Insist the conclusion is written down before the long run. Without that commitment the mission demonstrates nothing.
- The model is not wrong and the short run is not faulty. Sufficiency, not correctness, is the idea.
- Guard against the opposite error: the long run is better evidence, not proof.
Did the learner commit to a conclusion first, and can they state what the long run does and does not establish?
Hold this line
- Both runs are produced by the same model. Neither is measured evidence.
- A longer software run is still a software run and does not establish flight behaviour.
- This lesson does not qualify the model against physical hardware.
Home mission
Home mission: too early to tell
Think of something judged too early - a film after ten minutes, a game after one round. Write what the early evidence suggested, what it turned out to be, and what would have counted as enough.
Tell us what did not work
Ten questions, answered locally. Nothing is submitted or tracked — you download the file and send it if you want to.
Informal educator feedback
This local-first form contains the ten approved pilot-review questions. It does not submit, track, or store data remotely. Optional name/contact should be handled outside this form only if a reviewer volunteers it.