Oh, no! An asteroid is on a collision course with Earth!. Class members must rise to the challenge of designing a shelter that will protect people from the impact and permit them to live in this shelter for one year. In this first lesson...

Teams must determine the size of cavern needed to house the citizens of Alabraska to protect them from the asteroid impact. Using scaling properties, teams first determining the number of people that could sleep in a classroom and then...

Teams continue with the Asteroid Impact challenge and determine possible locations to construct their underground shelters. Participants cut scale area models of their shelters from paper and place them on the map to find locations...

Students examine a potential asteroid impact site. They describe evidence and theories for extinction events.

Space scientists use water displacement to determine the mass of a cubic centimeter mini meteorite, and then use it as a small-scale representative of an asteroid. They figure out the orbital velocity of an asteroid. Then they use a...

Students examine the different types of asteroids and how they enter the atmosphere.  In this space lesson students use mashed potatoes to create an asteroid they can eat.

Is the sky falling? Learners use a simulator to modify the mass and velocity of asteroids and collect data on how they influence the diameter and depth of the impact crater. They use their results to draw conclusions and make predictions...

Students study asteroids and how their size relates to a possible danger of one colliding with Earth.  In this asteroids lesson students see how big an asteroid has to be to cause destruction to Earth. 

Students explore the possibility of an asteroid hitting planet earth. In this planetary activity students complete a lab activity to see the effects of an asteroid hitting earth and compare different craters.

Time is growing short. Teams work together to identify physical properties of rocks in order to determine the properties that would best suit their cavern shelter design.

Teams take their cavern designs and build a model from clay or paper mache that can be buried in sand. Testing involves dropping a bowling ball on the buried cavern. Teams dig out their cavern, inspect it for damage, and consider...

Pupils explore the effects of velocity on an object when it collides with another object. They design and outfit a potato astronaut in a spacesuit to withstand the hazards of high velocity impacts from space debris and meteoroids.

Students explore parts of an impact crater and compare and contrast craters found in Earth, the Moon, and Mars. Crater formation is modelled and the relationship of mass, velocity, and size of the projectile to the crater formation is...

Students discover soil characteristics and how it is formed on Earth and the Moon by examining local samples to a lunar simulant. They replicate the effects of wind erosion by scraping dry bread with sandpaper. Students use rocks and...

Students study the environmental concerns of orbital debris.  In this orbital debris  instructional activity students complete several activities.

Students study craters and identify the different things that characterize craters.  In this crater instructional activity students create a model of an impact crater. 

Math rocks! Cavern design teams determine the rankings of rock types based upon desirability points. The points are connected to the properties of the rocks and their usefulness in building a cavern. 

How is the Earth's weather created? Middle schoolers will explain how the Sun's energy is transformed into different forms. They will perform mathematical calculations of volume, mass, and temperature. They they will explain the...

Students model how meteors fall to the surface of planets. For this space science lesson, students identify different types of meteorites using an interactive online website. They investigate the relationship between a meteorite's size...

Students construct a comet model based on procedure provided. In this space science lesson, students compare the physical properties of comets to the models they made. They record their observations and share them with the class.

Students identify the different types of meteorite using an interactive website. In this earth science instructional activity, students simulate how meteors crash on a surface. They relate meteor size to crater size.

Third graders watch a demonstration on how craters were formed on the moon. Individually, they care given a set of materials that represent the moon surface and make their own craters. To end the lesson, they measure the size of the...