Teach Engineering
Are We Alone?
Find an answer to the age-old debate of whether life exists on Mars. Groups determine criteria to help look for signs of life on Mars. The activity has the class simulate testing Martian soil samples for signs of life before drawing...
Curated Video
Detecting Lies & Harmful Links
Who and what can you trust online? How do you know? After viewing a pair of introductory videos on positive and safe online conduct, learners discuss the content and put it into practice during an online search activity about alien life.
Curated OER
Create an Alien Life Form
In this creative writing worksheet, students answer a series of questions about an alien they imagine. There are also other pre-writing exercises about historical figures, monuments, a zoo, and other topics designed to aid in the...
Curated OER
Draw an Alien in Natural Habitat
Students apply prior knowledge of living things, structures of living things and how living things sense and respond to their environment. In this habitat activity, students review the basic needs of organisms to survive. Students create...
Journey Through the Universe
Is There Anyone Out There?
What is an alien's favorite game? All-star baseball! Scholars start defining living and non-living. Then, they conduct experiments to research if life exists, keeping in mind that life could be in many forms, not just human.
NASA
Introduction to Astronomy
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...
Curated OER
Is Anybody Out There?
Students focus on the tremendous public interest in the potential of extraterrestrial life. They read and discuss an article about the search for alien life. They divide into small groups and discuss the issues and implications of this...
Curated OER
Are we alone? Do aliens exist?
Students discuss the existence of aliens in the universe. In this alien instructional activity, students discuss the answers to the questions: What are the chances that aliens exist in the universe? and What are the chances that aliens...
Curated OER
Exploring Deep Ocean Habitats: Alien Invasion
Students compare and contrast "alien species" and "invasive species."Students explain positive and negative impacts associated with introduction of non-native species, and give a specific example of species that produce t
Curated OER
An Alien Is Here!
In this alien writing worksheet, students imagine that an alien has come to visit. Students first make a list of 10 things that would show the alien about life on Earth. Then students rewrite the list, putting the things in order of...
National Geographic
Eat an Alien Invader
If you are looking for a lesson plan about invasive species to ocean habitats, you have arrived! Introduce the concept to learners and have them read an article about marine invasive species. Vocabulary, relevant web links, and a cute...
Curated OER
My Alien
Students listen to text read from "Hello! Anybody Out There?" and then brainstorm what aliens from outer space look like and do they exist at all.
They then will describe the physical features and a special ability or quality of an alien.
Curated OER
Is Anyone Out There? Examining Astrobiology and the Value of SETI
Blow their minds with a lesson on the search for life outside of our planet! A brief video proposes the question of how to define life. A couple of articles investigate the possibility of alien existence. Finally, the class is divided...
Curated OER
Extraterrestrials
Students discuss the possibility of intelligent life in space. In this space science lesson, students decipher a radio message electronically transmitted in space. They create their own extraterrestrial welcome greeting.
Curated OER
Alien Invaders: An Invasive Species Game
Students are introduced to invasive species and how they affect the ecosystems they now occur in. They explore the basic life histories of several invasive species that are of regional and or national importance. Pupils investigate how...
Curated OER
The Aliens are Coming!
Students create an alien and write a descriptive paragraph about it using all five senses.
Curated OER
Alien Visitor's Rewrite
High schoolers role play the role of an alien who analyzes how the media represents the different social groups. In groups, they write their own story in which they add or revise a character to make it non-stereotypical. They share...
Curated OER
An Alien Has Landed
Students identify animals within a species by using their observation skills to record information, such as behavioral characteristics.
California Education Partners
Animals of Rhomaar
Investigate the growth rates of alien animals. Pupils study fictional animals from another planet to determine how much they grow per year. The investigators plot the growth of their animals over a period of time and then compare them to...
American Museum of Natural History
A Closer Look at Mars
A website looks at how we know so much about Mars—telescopes, robots, and spacecraft—and the search for martian life. Following the informational text are three questions that quiz pupils about possible life on Mars.
Curated OER
Theme
Students examine a reading selection. In this descriptive writing lesson, students read an excerpt from "Hello! Anybody Out There?". Students discuss the idea of aliens living on other planets, describe what they think an alien looks...
Curated OER
Alien Invasion
Students research how alien species can change an ecosystem. In this coral reef lesson, students describe invasive species and site evidence how these species came to be invasive and what control measures are possible.
Center for History Education
Daily Lives of Slaves - What Really Happened?
The stories of enslaved people are preserved forever thanks to the Great Depression. Budding historians explore slave narratives gathered by a federal government initiative to discover what life was actually like for enslaved people....
Curated OER
Descending to the Challenge: Developing Documentaries About the Deep Ocean
The video clip that comprises the warm up is not available, but the related article from The New York Times and the movie trailer for Aliens of the Deep are, leaving enough material to make this a fascinating instructional activity on...