Alka-Seltzer Rockets
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Comets, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud, Earth's Moon
Short Description: Using baking soda and vinegar, propel an object across the floor to introduce the idea of how things move through space.
Conflicting Theories for the Origin of the Moon
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Earth's Moon
Short Description: There are different views on the origin of the Moon. Investigation results can be interpreted in different ways which are sometimes conflicting. Critical thinking and matching evidence with theories are skills that are highly valued in science. (You will need copies of the "Four theories for the Origin of the Moon and Fourteen Pieces of Evidence" for this activity. Click here to access this material.
Conflicting Theories for the Origin of the Moon (Supplementary Material)
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Earth's Moon
Short Description: There are different views on the origin of the Moon. Investigation results can be interpreted in different ways which are sometimes conflicting. Critical thinking and matching evidence with theories are skills that are highly valued in science.
Dance of the Moon and Oceans
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Earth, Earth's Moon
Short Description: Students discover how the Moon's gravitational pull causes the level of the ocean to rise and fall twice a day along most coastlines through this kinesthetic activity, and consider what the Earth's tides might have been like if there was no Moon.
Differentiation Demonstration: Moon
Grade Level: K-4, 5-8
Body: Earth's Moon
Short Description: Students observe a model of planetary differentiation, the organization of planetary interiors into layers of different densities. Materials of different densities are mixed in a bottle and allowed to separate into layers. The simple model illustrates how the Moon's interior became organized into a distinct core, mantle and outer crust from the debris of the Giant Impact.
Does the Moon Rotate?
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: 9-12
Body: Sun, Earth, Earth's Moon
Short Description: Students make a three-dimensional model of the Earth and Moon. Using the sun's light, they discover that the Moon does rotate in the same amount of time it takes to make one orbit.
Earth, Earth's Moon, Mars Balloons
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: K-4, 5-8
Body: Earth, Mars, Earth's Moon
Short Description: Curiosity about our place in space and whether we can travel to distant worlds beyond our own depends upon understanding the size, distance and other characteristics of moons and planets in our solar system. For this activity, students will construct a balloon scale model to understand the relative sizes of the Earth, Earth's Moon and Mars in relation to each other and their relative distance to each other at this scale. They will use this model to predict distances and reflect on how scientists use models to construct explanations through the scientific process. In this collection, this activity introduces the concept of models, which will be built upon in subsequent lessons, as well as the first set of Earth/Mars comparisons.
Earth-Moon Activity
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Earth, Earth's Moon
Short Description: Students work in pairs using different-sized spherical objects to represent Earth and the Moon. They use the diameter of the objects to establish this scale.
Exploring Lunar Phases with a Daytime Moon
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Sun, Earth's Moon
Short Description: This activity creates a model with the real Moon and sun in the sky to help participants discover the real reason for the lunar phases.
Exploring the Moon
Body: Earth's Moon
Mission: SMART-1 (Earth's Moon)
Short Description: Background and Activities to help elementary to high-school students explore our Moon from Pre-Apollo times to the future.
Exploring the Moon: Life Support Systems
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth's Moon
Mission: Apollo (Earth's Moon)
Short Description: A future lunar base will have to be a self-contained habitat with all the life support systems necessary for the survival of humans, animals and plants. In this series of activities, the students will design and build models of nine life support systems that are crucial to successful human settlement of the moon.
Exploring the Moon: Reaping Rocks
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth's Moon
Mission: Apollo (Earth's Moon), GRAIL (Earth's Moon)
Short Description: Students make predictions about the origin of lunar rocks by collecting, describing and classifying rocks from their neighborhood.
Golfball Phases and Eclipses
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Sun, Earth, Earth's Moon
Short Description: Students explore the dynamics of lunar phases to develop an understanding of the relative positions of our Moon, Earth and sun that cause the phases of the Moon as viewed from Earth. Using a golf ball glowing under the ultraviolet light of a "blacklight" makes it easier to see the actual phase of the Moon.
Introduction to Photogeologic Mapping
Topic: Landforms
Grade Level: 9-12
Body: Earth's Moon
Short Description: Participants observe how a planet can be used to produce geologic maps while identifying rock units and placement of units in a time sequence.
Kinesthetic Lunar Rotation/ Revolution
Grade Level: 9-12
Body: Earth's Moon
Short Description: This kinesthetic activity is designed to give participants a first hand look at the movement of the Moon.
Mars Pathfinder: Egg Drop and Landing
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Comets, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud, Earth's Moon, Pluto
Mission: Mars Pathfinder (Mars)
Short Description: Design, build, and test a system for landing on the surface of Mars without breaking the cargo, an egg.
Modeling the Solar System
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Comets, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud, Earth's Moon
Short Description: This PDF contains four lessons:
1) Modeling Orbits in the Solar System. This lesson models the orbital distances between the planets and shows that the solar system is mostly empty space.
2) Modeling Sizes of Planets. This lesson compares the relative sizes of the planets to those of familiar fruits and vegetables. It also uses size to calculate density and planet composition.
3) Looking Inside Planets. This lesson involves modeling the interior structures of the planets and shows that the solid cores of the gas giants are similar in size to the Earth or Venus.
4) Search for A Habitable Planet. This lesson looks at the characteristics of planets that make them livable, their temperature, and compositions of atmosphere and surface instead of size
or orbit.
Mud Splat Craters
Topic: Planetary Surface Processes
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Comets, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud, Earth's Moon, Pluto
Short Description: Observe crater formation in mud to introduce the idea of fluidized craters as seen on the surface of Mars.
Observing the Moon
Grade Level: K-4
Body: Earth's Moon
Short Description: Students observe the Moon's changing appearance and features.
On the Moon
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: K-4, 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth's Moon
Mission: LCROSS (Earth's Moon), Lunar Recon Orbiter (Earth's Moon)
Short Description: This guide has six activities that bring engineering and NASA's Moon missions to life. Some are applicable for elementary-aged students, and one is for high school students, but most are targeted for middle school students.
Challenge 1: Launch It
Design an air-powered rocket that can hit a distant target.
Challenge 2: Touchdown
Create a platform that can safely cushion "astronauts" when they land on a table near you.
Challenge 3: Roving the Moon
Build a rubber band-powered car that can scramble across the room.
Challenge 4: Heavy Lifting
Build a cardboard crane and see how heavy a load it can lift.
Challenge 5: On Target
Modify a paper cup so it can zip down a line and drop a marble on a target.
Challenge 6: Feel the Heat
Heat things up by building a solar hot water heater.
Oreo Moon Phases
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: K-4
Body: Earth's Moon
Short Description: Students model the order and appearance of the phases of the Moon using cookies and frosting.
Photogeologic Mapping of the Moon
Topic: Planetary Surface Processes
Grade Level: 9-12
Body: Earth's Moon
Short Description: Participants use photo geologic mapping to analyze images of the Moon and understand the concept of superposition.
Regolith Formation
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth's Moon
Short Description: Participants model and observe the formation of regolith on the lunar surface.
Seeing the Moon: Using Light to Investigate the Moon
Topic: Light and Spectra
Grade Level: 9-12
Body: Earth's Moon
Mission: Chandrayaan-1 (Earth's Moon), Lunar Recon Orbiter (Earth's Moon)
Short Description: Through the hands-on inquiry based activities, students experiment with light and color, collect and analyze authentic data from rock samples using a reflectance spectrometer, map the rock types of the Moon, and develop theories of the Moon's history.
Size and Shape Imaged
Topic: Life
Body: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Comets, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud, Earth's Moon
Short Description: This activity contains a series of images of very small things. Students will view the images, hear the information from a script, and make some observations and connections. They will see Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images and Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) images of small living organisms and rock surfaces. Then, using their new perspective, they will view unidentified samples and speculate about the surfaces and the origins of the features in the images. The goal is to get the students to think about looking at very small objects and to realize
that observations are a great way to start scientific research.
Solar System Exploration Mission Timeline Activity
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Our Solar System, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Meteors & Meteorites, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Dwarf Planets, Comets, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud, Earth's Moon, Europa
Mission: ARTEMIS (Earth's Moon), Cassini (Saturn), Dawn (Dwarf Planets), DSN (Our Solar System), GRAIL (Earth's Moon), Hubble (Beyond Our Solar System), Huygens (Saturn), IBEX (Our Solar System), InSight (Mars), Juno (Jupiter), Lunar Recon Orbiter (Earth's Moon), MESSENGER (Mercury), NEAR Shoemaker (Asteroids), New Horizons (Dwarf Planets), Phoenix (Mars), Stardust (Comets), Venus Express (Venus), Viking 01 (Mars), Viking 02 (Mars), Voyager 1 (Our Solar System), Voyager 2 (Our Solar System)
Short Description: Extreme Exploration -- Solar System Exploration Missions Timeline involves students in the wide range of mission events of 2008-2015+. Using the Solar System Exploration Timeline poster as a guide, student teams research assigned missions and record events such as launch and landing, etc. It is expected that students will be drawn into the excitement of mission events as they follow along with NASA's Solar System Exploration -- past, current, and future.
Space Math: LRO Makes a Temperature Map of the Lunar South Pole
Topic: Math
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth's Moon
Mission: Lunar Recon Orbiter (Earth's Moon)
Short Description: Students use the published LRO temperature map to study the scale of the south polar region, the sizes of its craters and estimate the volume of water-ice that may be present in Shackleton Crater.
The Drake Equation -- Estimating the Number of Civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Earth's Moon
Short Description: Students estimate the number of civilizations in the galaxy by first estimating the number of craters on the Moon and then by performing estimates of multiple-variable systems culminating in the use of the Drake Equation.
The Oldest Lunar Rocks
Topic: Math
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Earth's Moon
Short Description: A list of the ages of the oldest lunar rock samples is grouped into families with about the same average ages to estimate the age of the lunar mare.
The Penny Moon and Quarter Earth
Topic: Modeling Solar System Objects
Grade Level: 9-12
Body: Earth, Earth's Moon
Short Description: The students use a penny and a quarter to model the Moon's rotation on its axis and revolution around the Earth, and demonstrate that the Moon keeps the same face toward the Earth.
Through the Eyes of Scientists Grades 4-6: Volcanoes - They're Everywhere!
Topic: Landforms
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Earth's Moon
Mission: Cassini (Saturn), Galileo (Jupiter)
Short Description: Learn about volcanoes on Earth and in the solar system through the eyes of Scientist Dr. Rosaly Lopes.This lesson is part of the Through the Eyes of Scientists formal education product, and includes materials for students in grades 4-6.
Through the Eyes of Scientists: Around and Around - Everything is Moving
Grade Level: K-4
Body: Our Solar System, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Comets, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud, Earth's Moon
Mission: Voyager 1 (Our Solar System), Voyager 2 (Our Solar System)
Short Description: Learning about the ever-moving objects in our solar system through the eyes of Scientist-Adventurer, Dr. Edward Stone. This lesson is part of the Through the Eyes of Scientists formal education product.
Through the Eyes of Scientists: Moons - Many, Many Moons!
Grade Level: K-4
Body: Our Solar System, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud, Earth's Moon
Mission: Cassini (Saturn), Galileo (Jupiter), GRAIL (Earth's Moon), Lunar Recon Orbiter (Earth's Moon)
Short Description: Learning about moons of the solar system through the eyes of Scientist-Moon Master, Dr. Bonnie Buratti.This lesson is part of the Through the Eyes of Scientists formal education product.
Through the Eyes of Scientists: Space Can Be a Chilly Place - Ice Is Nice!
Grade Level: K-4
Body: Our Solar System, Mercury, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Comets, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud, Earth's Moon
Mission: Cassini (Saturn)
Short Description: Learning about ice in the solar system through the eyes of Scientist-Arctic Space Explorer, Mr. Ben Holt. This lesson is part of the Through the Eyes of Scientists formal education product.
Through the Eyes of Scientists: What is a Planet?
Grade Level: K-4
Body: Our Solar System, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Comets, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud, Earth's Moon
Short Description: Learning about the Sun and the planets as a "treasure map" through the eyes of Scientist-Treasure Hunter, Dr. Phil Chamberlin.
Transit Math
Topic: Math
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud, Earth's Moon
Short Description: The introduction clearly explains the apparent "collisions," eclipses, transits, and occultations. The collection includes problems on synodic periods, planetary conjunctions, geometry, fractions, linear equations, and probability. The Table of Contents clearly separates middle school level problems from high school problems.
Voyage: A Journey Through Our Solar System -- Lesson 4: Going through a Phase
Topic: Motions: Orbits, Phases, and Seasons
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Earth's Moon
Short Description: The varying appearance of the Moon over the course of a month results from changes in the relative positions of the Earth, Moon and sun. In the first activity, daily observations of the Moon over many weeks allow the phase cycle to be observed and characterized, and an explanation to be hypothesized. The hypothesis is tested in the second activity where students construct a working model of the Earth-Moon-sun system and determine if they can recreate the observed phase cycle. To truly develop a conceptual understanding of the phenomenon, students explore whether the Earth should exhibit a phase cycle as seen from the Moon, and whether an Earth observer should see other planets exhibiting phase cycles.
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