Cool Space Missions (and lesson ideas)
Are you a space enthusiast? Do you know why July 20th is such a big deal?
That's right! It's the anniversary of the first moon landing—a whopping 55 years ago! 😱 The landing was an incredible achievement, but our excitement for space travel during the 1960s also drove huge advancements in the STEM field. It's wild to think that just 11 years after NASA was founded, we sent people to the moon!
The best part? NASA has some really exciting space missions planned for the next few years that could reignite that same excitement in our future scientists. Check out this list of upcoming missions and some ideas on how to incorporate them into your curriculum:
🚀 Europa Clipper Mission: I'm really excited about this one. In October, NASA is sending a probe to Jupiter's neighborhood. Once the Clipper finishes its six-year journey, it will take a close look at Europa, Jupiter's icy moon.
Why is this such a big deal? Scientists believe there's a massive ocean beneath Europa's frozen surface. Even more intriguing, there might be alien life lurking in that ocean!
This could be a fantastic opportunity for a science lesson on ecosystems that don't rely on the Sun as their primary energy source. Students could research and build profiles on organisms that use chemosynthesis, like the bacteria and giant tube worm partnerships found at deep ocean vents. Could this be the type of life we might find on Europa? Students can illustrate their predictions based on their research!
🚀 Artemis II Mission: Get ready for something big in 2025! For the first time since the 70s, humans are heading back to the moon. They won’t be landing just yet, but they'll be conducting a flyby to test the Orion capsule and ensure it can keep astronauts safe in space.
This mission could inspire a hands-on activity involving insulating materials - space gets super cold! Students could work in groups to use different materials like styrofoam or cardboard to build a container that can completely hold a small cup of water. By borrowing the freezer in the teacher's lounge, they can measure which material keeps the water liquid the longest.
If you don't have room in a freezer for all the groups, maybe the class could vote on the best container for each material used?
🚀 Lunar Trailblazer: Another exciting moon mission is set to launch later this year. The Lunar Trailblazer mission aims to find water on the moon!
The moon's conditions are totally different from Earth—no atmosphere and a water cycle influenced by asteroid impacts and solar winds. As an extension of the Lunar Trailblazer mission, your students can re-imagine the water cycle with a plastic bag activity.
You might know the classic Earth's water cycle experiment: fill a zipper storage bag with air and water, seal it, and place it on a window sill. The water vaporizes, condenses, and falls back as liquid. But what if students varied the amounts of air in the bags? They could measure the volume of different bags and make qualitative observations on how the water cycle functions in each.
I hope these space-inspired lessons are fun and insightful investigations for the class. I know I'll be checking the news to see what these exciting missions reveal!
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