Welcome to your new job as an astrophysicist, astrobiologist, engineer, or research scientist at NASA. Your job is to search for alien life in our solar system! Throughout a unit of activities, learners search the galaxy through readings, discussions, research, writing, and experiments about life on Earth. 

Concepts

human survival, human needs, astronomy, extraterrestrial life

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Additional Tags

science

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Instructional Ideas

• Read through prerequisite concepts and review any difficult ones with your class before beginning the lesson

Classroom Considerations

• Activities are extensive, so walk through each activity with another teacher to anticipate difficult parts for learners, where questions will arise, and amount of time needed for each section
• Suggested length of time to complete all activities is seven days; teachers may choose to use parts of this unit and time may be more/less depending upon the level of the class
• Needs a printer in the classroom and transparencies as well as a lengthy list of other materials

Pros

• Includes step-by-step instructions for the teacher
• Contains rubrics and student data pages
• Activities all set up for the 5E model: engage ,explore, explain, extend, evaluate
• Weaves critical thinking questions throughout each activity

Cons

• Links at bottom of page 31 do not work

Common Core

RST.6-8.2 RST.6-8.8