Using photographs and models, students are taken on a virtual journey to outer space. They can look back at the Earth as they travel further away and see it growing increasingly smaller, giving the experience that we live on a tiny planet that floats in a vast and empty space.

This resource was created by Terresa Greenleaf, in collaboration with Dawn DeTurk, Hannah Blomstedt, and Julie Albrecht, as part of ESU2's Integrating the Arts project. This project is a four year initiative focused on integrating arts into the core curriculum through teacher education, practice, and coaching.

This collection of activities is based on a weekly series of space science problems distributed to thousands of teachers during the 2009-2010 school year. They were intended for students looking for additional challenges in the math and physical science curriculum in grades 9 through 12. The problems were created to be authentic glimpses of modern science and engineering issues, often involving actual research data. The problems were designed to be ‘one-pagers’ with a Teacher’s Guide and Answer Key as a second page. This compact form was deemed very popular by participating teachers.

Students build their own satellite using household materials. Through the process, they learn about satellites and their functions.

Students create and decorate their own spectrographs using simple materials and holographic diffraction gratings. A holographic diffraction grating acts like a prism, showing the visual components of light. After building the spectrographs, students observe the spectra of different light sources as homework.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Spaceflight affects the human body in numerous ways, but one underexplored area is the mouth. The mouth is home to rich populations of bacteria and fungi which, studies have hinted, can undergo shifts during long and even short space missions. For the first time, researchers have tracked changes in the oral microbiome during and after spaceflight and examined how those changes might reawaken dormant viruses — a phenomenon long known to affect astronauts. The team analyzed saliva samples from 10 male astronauts for microbial makeup and for the presence of Epstein-Barr, herpes simplex, and varicella zoster virus. Only Epstein-Barr virus counts appeared to track with changes in microbial composition during spaceflight. For example, increased virus counts coincided with increased numbers of bacteria of the genus Gracilibacteria, while low counts coincided with increased numbers of members of Oribacteria and Hemophilus..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

The City X Project is an international educational workshop for 8-12 year-old students that teaches creative problem solving using 3D printing technologies and the design process. This 6-10 hour workshop is designed for 3rd-6th grade classrooms but can be adapted to fit a variety of environments. Read a full overview of the experience here: http://www.cityxproject.com/workshop/

The app is currently used in a research study which aims to investigate how Augmented Reality can influence STEM (Science, technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education and if it can improve pupils interest towards STEM.
Its main purpose is to enhance interest and curiosity levels in STEM, particularly focused on topics like astronomy, space exploration, and space technology.

In March 1962, Administrator of NASA James Webb suggested that artists be enlisted to document the historic effort to send the first human beings to the Moon.

The Smithsonian Learning Lab Space Suit Challenge engages students in examining a comprehensive space suit collection from the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum as a means to design future space suits.

This course introduces students to the art and formal ideologies of contemporary dance. We explore the aesthetic and technical underpinnings of contemporary dance composition. Basic compositional techniques are discussed and practiced, with an emphasis on principles such as weight, space, time, effort, and shape. Principles of musicality are considered and developed by each student. Working with each other as the raw material of the dance, students develop short compositions that reveal their understanding of basic techniques. Hopefully, students come to understand a range of compositional possibilities available to artists who work with the medium of the human body.

Students find and calculate the angle that light is transmitted through a holographic diffraction grating using trigonometry. After finding this angle, student teams design and build their own spectrographs, researching and designing a ground- or space-based mission using their creation. At project end, teams present their findings to the class, as if they were making an engineering conference presentation. Student must have completed the associated Building a Fancy Spectrograph activity before attempting this activity.

Students acquire a basic understanding of the science and engineering of space travel as well as a brief history of space exploration. They learn about the scientists and engineers who made space travel possible and briefly examine some famous space missions. Finally, they learn the basics of rocket science (Newton's third law of motion), the main components of rockets and the U.S. space shuttle, and how engineers are involved in creating and launching spacecraft.

This lesson is about the solar system and its objects, such as planets, moons, asteroids, and comets, it is revolving around the place where each celestial body resides. It engages students in exploring, researching, modeling, and discussing these objects and their characteristics, as well as the factors that make Earth habitable and the importance of space exploration. The lesson has four main parts: an introduction, where students are hooked by a hidden moon rock and learn about the lesson’s objectives and agenda; an exploration, where students work in groups to research various solar system objects using classroom resources and the NASA Solar System Exploration website, formulating questions about the solar system; an activity, where groups create models to represent Earth under different solar system conditions, based on “what if” questions, and present their findings; and a discussion, where a class discussion follows, focusing on the habitability factors of planets and the importance of space exploration. The lesson ends with students writing and peer-reviewing reflections on what they have learned.

A favorite movie, “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” provides the backdrop scenario for students to discover how harnessing the sun’s energy provides unlimited power for many purposes, including the operation of thousands of satellites in orbit today and communication over long distances. In the movie, E.T., an alien life form, is stranded on Earth and befriends Elliott, the little boy who rescues him. As E.T. becomes gravely ill, Elliott realizes that E.T. needs to return home in order to survive. To arrange for transport, E.T. must “phone home.” Teams engage in an interactive quest to answer the question: E.T. phone home—fact or fiction? They must discover four clues in order to unlock four padlocks on a box that contains the answer. This requires them to watch a one-minute online video, complete a crossword puzzle, scan three QR codes for articles to read, and put together a cut-apart puzzle with an invisible ink clue. They watch short online movie excerpt videos to kick off and wrap up the activity.

By studying X-rays in deep space, we can learn about some of the most violent and extreme objects in the universe, such as black holes and the remains of stars that have exploded

This November, we celebrate 20 years of continuous human presence on the International Space Station--an incredible example of international cooperation.

Watch the sixth episode of our #EZScience series to learn about the 30th anniversary of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

Earth Day is a time for raising awareness and appreciation for our environment. Children will learn the importance of their home planet and about the three R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.