The students have now completed their mission, and if the mission is accomplished the students have a result to be communicated to others; the students critical interaction could include renewed dialogues with citizens and with the students’ families. The student teams can choose any form of relevant communication media; oral and/or visual (a model, poster, slide show, website, video. local press, Facebook etc.), in order to communicate how they accomplished the critical science detectives mission. Considerations on who are relevant parties for the information must be conducted; other students?, parents?, the students’ social and gaming networks?, the school board?, the headmaster?, the mayor? etc.
Your role as a teacher
Perhaps the mission was to establish better WiFi at the school, or to have healthier food in the school canteen, or to have better waste sorting in the municipality? Results from different missions will have different audiences. Of course, sharing experience in class will be relevant to many of the classmates; what did the different groups do, when, how and why? What was the result of the mission and what complications or recommendations will the outcome of the mission bring about? Who are actually the relevant parties to know about this? If the mission e.g. was that the canteen food become healthier, who should be told and in what way to make it happen? What arguments would be needed? What does it mean that the food is healthier? How can the healthier food be delivered without it being more expensive etc? As a teacher, you can help the students organize the information so the target audience buys the message, and changes will appear.
The mission is accomplished, but to what extent was the mission a success? Did the students use and learn science during the mission? Through a perspective look at the students missions, you could ask the students; “If you had to do the mission over again, what would you change, and why?”, “Do you see any weak spots in your mission?”, “In which ways can you improve your methods in order to complete your mission in a satisfactory way?” etc.