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The Earth.Works
PROJECT
in search of truth and learning
Luca is your digital classmate
Stimulating Curiosity and Wonder
Improving understanding, retention and recall.
Supporting and broadening the curriculum throughout your schooldays and beyond
Full of Wonder
Full of Wisdom
Full of Questions
Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world. Nelson Mandela
The beauty of Mapedeon is that it breaks down the divisions formed by academic disciplines. Knowledge that is siloed can be restrictive and by releasing it onto one interconnected canvas opens a whole new perspective and reveals opportunities that until now have been hidden.
It achieves this by visualising the narrative of events that have taken place from the earliest moments of creation to the events that are unfolding on our planet today.
What is LUCA?
Over the past 500 years or so, humans have applied their wisdom and reason to stare out into the stars and to look back in time. To deduce what events have taken place and to determine the scientific principles that apply to this universe. Humans have stared inwards into the cells that make up life and studied the chemistry that makes those cells function.
With each new discovery, another piece of the jigsaw is added to the big picture that is slowly being revealed. The purpose of this project is to somehow visualise this masterpiece and grasp the magnitude of time and space. To make the unimaginable, imaginable and to present information in a way that gives a different perspective on our planet and how it works.
Created on an infinite 2D canvas that is bounded by time and space. This scaled map organises knowledge on the grandest of scales giving knowledge a specific time and place.
Stimulating Curiosity and Wonder
Young children are full of wonder and curiosity. They hunger for explanations from topics such as the vastness of space and the wonderment of the night sky through to the smallest of insects carrying their bounty back to their nest.
How well do we feed and nurture this wonder, which often decline as life takes over, although many rekindle their curiosity later in life?
The existence of humans on this Earth has come about as a result of a large number of extraordinary events that have resulted in a planet that can support life. Built into LUCA are these pivotal events that plot how life has arisen from the dust and gas on the surface of this planet and then evolved into a species that can study where it has come from.
A different perspective
Until now it has been impossible to portray the vastness of time and space onto paper and even the screen. Scale has been compromised. There is so much that is bigger than us and so much that is smaller. We sit somewhere on this scale possibly near the middle.
Our views of earth are limited to the photographs taken from the Moon’s surface, the tiny “pale blue dot” taken by Voyager 1, 6 billion kilometres away and the computer-generated models seen in documentaries. Grasping how small this planet is and how far away are our neighbours can be a “reality check”. It puts the words of Carl Sagan into perspective.
LUCA is designed to allow you to grasp the magnitude of time and space. So why not make the unimaginable, imaginable and get a new perspective on our planet and how it works.
Supporting and Broadening the Curriculum
LUCA is your personal digital classmate. It's there to support and not replace the work that goes on in the classroom, giving the topic a context and a clarity that other learning resources struggle to achieve.
Covering much of the curriculum especially the sciences and humanities it allows you to dive into a topic, aware of where it sits in the big scheme of things. Each learning journey is rich in media content, curated with care by experts and so providing a stimulating safe place to study.
For those who are hungry to stretch their minds there are huge opportunities to wander around the map to both near and far locations and thus simplifying the process of “reading around the topic”. LUCA is a knowledge organiser that encompasses multiple disciplines allowing the learner to access knowledge with ease and giving studying a different dimension.
As with well-known online maps, the more you zoom in the greater the detail. But with LUCA that means moving from a basic grasp to exam level depth and at each scale the knowledge and supporting media are curated specifically to that depth. At each “node” the media provided range from text to video, animations to podcasts.
The process of learning does not stop when we grow up. For many the chance to broaden ones understanding continues throughtout our lives. Whether you are stuck at home or keen to enrich the lives of your children and grandchildren LUCA is there for you.
Imagine the conversation, the questions...
Wow
How many stars are there?
Beautiful
Wonder & Amazement
How far are they away?
How special is our planet?
Improving Understanding, retention and recall
Knowledge Organisers have proved themselves in education for a while as they:
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Providing the big picture
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Helping with memory
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Retrieval practice
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Helping teachers plan
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Highlighting knowledge gaps
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Creating a level playing field
Most Knowledge Organisers are paper based and cover limited topics. LUCA is a massive multi-discipline knowledge organiser that gives every topic a time and place.
Imagine being given a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle in a plastic bag. All the pieces jumbled up in a hap hazard way and no box cover to show you what you are trying to build. This analogy mirrors how we approach education. 10,000 lessons thrown into our brain in the hope that we can retrieve specific pieces at the drop of a hat.
It would have helped to have had the box cover image at the start. To know where each piece is stored, to see what was missed when you were absent, to identify the gaps.
With LUCA by your side every snippet of knowledge you acquire can be dropped into a precise location. You know where to go to retrieve it and you know what is missing. You can explore areas that interest you and broaden your knowledge beyond the bounds of any syllabus.
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