JOURNEY TO MARS: ROLE PLAYING GAME EXPERIENCE IN AN ASTRONOMY CLASSROOM C. Sitko 1 , C. Costa-Lobo 2 1 Universidade Estadual Londrina (BRAZIL) 2 Universidade Portucalense (PORTUGAL) Abstract It is presented a report of an extracurricular course of Astronomy, performed in a Brazilian extracurricular school, making use of Role Playing Games (RPG) implementation in classroom, based on theoretical Physics and Astronomy contents. During four months, six private school students (ages 13-16) had Astronomy classes with the Journey to Mars theme. Students had to experience how they could plant on Mars, to construct and after to launch their rocket, to perform Spatial Physics, Mechanics and Astronautics calculations. In this work it is presented the specific story "Journey to Mars" in details, with the soundtrack used, how much time had been spent with each scene, and other useful issues; and the reactions of students and teacher are also presented. The results, obtained by the constructivism perspective, indicates good engagement by the students, as well the achievement of effective learning. This is an unabridged RPG report that can be adapted and replicated in other scholar contexts. Keywords: Active learning, effective learning, astronomy education. 1 INTRODUCTION On these days, it is necessary to promote different types of teaching methodologies at school. The students have to be prepared to face a hard job market. It is necessary to put the student not as a receiver, but as a builder of his on knowledge. Is it showed [1] that the most important abilities today are the resolution of problems, flexibility, motivation for excellence, creativity, and others. Aiming to promote these abilities, it is necessary that students know how to work in teams, to analyse, to interact with each other and to criticize. To achieve it, it is necessary to think in active methodologies of teaching, and one proposal of this type of teaching and consequently a significant learning is the use of RPG (Role Playing Game) on school. RPG is a type of game in which the actors take on roles of characters and create narratives collaboratively. The progress of a game is achieved according to a predetermined rule system, within which players can improvise freely. The players' choices determine the direction the game will take. RPGs are typically more collaborative and social than competitive. An RPG occasionally has winners or losers, fueling the imagination, without however limiting the player's behavior to a particular plot. The RPG is a traditional story-telling game, in which there is a master, who plan and control the adventure (the teacher), a scenario, characters (the students) who help to construct the narrative, using improvisation and previous knowledge about the theme treated [2]. There are specifics rules and tokens from the original game to define the characters on the traditional game that can be adapted to teaching. This a good type of methodology to make students think and talk without fear in front of others, a good cooperative work. According to Vygotsky, the cognitive development depends on the social medium, in other words, the individual learn as he or she interacts with the social. Besides that, Vygotsky [3] also defend that the child learn with the play, the game provides the necessary to it. The RPG is also a good kind of evaluation, where the teacher and perfectly perceive if the student have learned the contents on class. Also, the teacher can introduce new contents during the game. Therefore, we have done use of this practice in our class in order to perceive some of these expected results. Accordingly, we believe that using these practices, the teaching and the learning can be improved. Proceedings of EDULEARN18 Conference 2nd-4th July 2018, Palma, Mallorca, Spain ISBN: 978-84-09-02709-5 0275