Thanks for explaining why you do what you do. Makes complete sense. Astrobiology sounds at first blush like an exotic unusual topic, but if you think the purpose of education is to prepare kids to solve the problems our world now faces, it is one of the most natural paths forward. It follows in the footsteps of what many science fiction writers have been doing for years — using hypothetical scenarios involving entire worlds to play out possible futures and problems.

The interesting radical premises of your post are:

The world situation is critical. This is not a drill. There are urgent real stakes right now. Results matter more than sticking to conventional patterns in education, which were designed over a century ago for a very different world.

We need to think about whole systems, not (just) individual academic subjects.

Kids are powerful leaders. Educators are powerful leaders.

A related holistic approach to education I’ve seen is Doreen Nelson’s City Building, in which kids design whole cities. Here’s her brother Frank Gehry talking about her approach: https://www.curbed.com/2019/6/14/18679575/frank-gehrys-school-architecture-design-learning