The purpose of this curriculum, The Plausibility of Interstellar Communication and Related Phenomena Depicted in Science Fiction Literature and the Movies, has four major objectives: first, to educate students to develop concepts about the proximity of our solar system in relation to other probable solar systems in the Milky Way Galaxy; second, to give students the opportunity to use these concepts to evaluate the plausibility of interstellar communication depicted in science fiction literature and movies; and third, to create an opportunity for students not only to look out on the universe but to turn it inward to look at the world, their own society, and themselves as individuals. A fourth objective that will be integrated with all of the others is to give students to opportunity to learn and/or sharpen skills in: using the scientific method, research, reading, writing, collaboration, discussion, and in critical thinking.
This curriculum is designed to serve at-risk high school students who have been unsuccessful in getting credit in a large urban high school. While it introduces several scientific concepts, it is designed to be taught by an English teacher. Therefore, it attempts to combine science and humanities, including two art projects that conclude the curriculum. In my school, the Wilbur Cross Annex, where we spend fifty percent of every day engaged in interdisciplinary team teaching, it will be possible to combine my curriculum with the curriculum in this publication written by a math teacher, Saundra Stephenson, with whom I team teach at the Annex.
This curriculum contains three specific lesson plans. One is designed to teach students concepts such as the speed of light and what the term "light year" means; another plan is designed to teach the students how to use the standard five-paragraph essay to communicate their findings after they have applied the scientific method to analyze the scientific "facts" in a science fiction short story; and third, is an exercise in the imagination, designed to encourage students to collaborate on a description of our world or society that they would send (if it were possible) into the cosmos to extraterrestrial civilizations, followed by a similar activity in which they devise a description of themselves as individuals that they would send into the cosmos. These last lesson plans lend themselves to brainstorming and collaborating and arriving at substantive answers to the questions, "What is an accurate description of us as a society or a world?" and "What is an accurate description of me as an individual?"