Astronomy

NASA's Sally Ride EarthKAM Activity

Sally Ride EarthKAM (Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students) is a NASA educational outreach program that enables students, teachers, and the public to learn about Earth from the unique perspective of space.

During Sally Ride EarthKAM missions (periods when the Sally Ride EarthKAM camera is operational), middle school students around the world request images of specific locations on Earth.

Scaling planetary size and the solar system

This exercise challenges students to think about the order of and spacing between the planets in our solar system. Teachers may swap out and complete this exercise by having the students scale the relative size/diameters of the planets. I start by having the students work in groups of four or five and use the length of our classroom as the distance between the Sun and Neptune. Students must discussion and determine where to place a labeled Post-It note on the floor at the approximate relative position of the planet.

Structure of the Milky Way

This is meant to be an introduction to CER using real data on Milky Way star clusters.  It can be expanded to cover many more concepts, but in this version it is meant to reveal the contrast between the shape of the Milky Way’s disk and halo components. 

Using data from professional catalogues, students are going to look for patterns in the positions in space of two different types of star clusters in the Milky Way – globular clusters and open clusters.

Two Moons for Planet Earth?

(Part of the PAESTA In The News - Current Events in Earth and Space Science Series. This series compiles current resources and background materials for recent scientific events in the news. Questions are provided with each topic, written across Bloom's Taxonomic Scale, and can be used for classroom discussion and/or as a writing prompt at the beginning/middle/end of an instructional unit.)

Indications for Water Flowing on Mars

(Part of the PAESTA In The News - Current Events in Earth and Space Science Series. This series compiles current resources and background materials for recent scientific events in the news. Questions are provided with each topic, written across Bloom's Taxonomic Scale, and can be used for classroom discussion and/or as a writing prompt at the beginning/middle/end of an instructional unit.)

Where and how do we find planets on the sky?

There are two goals for this activity - the first is to introduce a particular piece of planetarium software we used in our instructional setting, called Starry Night.  The scientific goal is to see that the planets (and perhaps other Solar System objects, like Ceres & Eris) show a pattern in their location on the sky, which is that they are always along (or near) the Ecliptic, which runs through the Zodiac constellations.

Image of the Day

An image is a powerful tool for Earth and space science instruction.  An image can capture a feature, a process, and/or an event and allow us to bring that snapshot to our students.  Although images may be used throughout a class period, an image can be used at the very beginning of a class to engage students and direct classroom discussion for the day.

We invite you to contribute to our collection of examples of how you utilize an “image of the day.”