Space Exploration Lesson Plans

Students study the space exploration's history and the factors of its development. In this space exploration lesson, students assemble, organize, and display photographs and articles about the history of space exploration. Students visit the NASA history homepage and the History Channel's Timeline of Space to find the images.

Students examine the privatization of NASA. In this space exploration lesson, students investigate the Obama administration's policies to privatize some of NASA's flight operations. PBS news videos are referenced in this lesson and several links and worksheets are included.    

Students explore space. For this current events lesson, students visit selected websites to learn about NASA, Mars, the Seti Institute, and space exploration terminology. Students make space glossaries and their own telescopes.

Learners study the pioneers of space exploration and travel; identify some of the early astronauts who prepared the way for others; examine the social and political conditions at the dawn of the Space Age; and differentiate among space practices.

Sixth graders research websites for space exploration. They discuss space history and beliefs of early cultures. They discuss explorations and research websites to create a report on how our knowledge of space has changed due to new findings in space science.

Students react to statements about space exploration, then read a news article about plans to resume manned flights to the moon. In this space science and current events lesson, the teacher introduces the article with a discussion and vocabulary activity, then students read the news report and participate in a class discussion. Lesson includes interdisciplinary follow-up activities.

Students research and identify important events that have occurred in relation to space exploration. They work in groups of 3-4 students in order to research an important astronaut on the Internet. They record their finding on a poster board and present to the class.

Students examine the Apollo lunar landings and past theories about the creation and structure of the Earth's Moon as a springboard for investigating missions and milestones in space exploration since the creation of NASA in 1958.

Students create a time line of the important events that led up to the current state of space exploration . They use a Discovery Channel video and internet research to explore the spacecrafts and missions from 1950 to 2000. Using this data, they hypothesize about space exploration in the year 2020.

Learners examine space exploration and its domination by governments as well as the fact that some private businesses want to explore space too. They investigate the ethical questions surrounding a space exploration through research and a class discussion.