An asteroid strikes a massive starship halfway through a 300-year, multigenerational journey for a society of humans who hope to establish a new home on a distant planet. The disaster costs thousands of lives and cripples the starship’s support systems, leaving only enough hydrogen to fuel another 30 years of space flight. The surviving travelers must work together to find a star where they can harvest more hydrogen. 

What plan of action will save them, and how will the story unfold? Two College of Arts and Sciences faculty members brought their undergraduate courses together to challenge students with solving these questions in a groundbreaking collaboration of physics and English courses.

One of them is Sean Lindsay, a teaching associate professor in physics and astronomy, who designed his astronomy special topics course, Tales from the Yggdrasil, to teach principles of astronomy within the imagined scenario of the troubled space journey.

Read the full story from Higher Ground.