What do Newton's Laws have to do with getting from Earth to Mars?The activities in this resource show how Newton's Laws work with rockets to get them into space. Background information includes facts about orbits and how orbits...

Students explore the Solar System. In this cross-curriculum space instructional activity, students identify the planets, name them in order according to distance from the sun, and describe major characteristics of each planet. Students...

Students examine the topic of the Earth's rotation, revolution, and orbit. They observe teacher-led demonstrations, explore various websites, write journal entries, conduct a demonstration of why Earth experiences day and night, and...

Learners explore the possibility of being on Mars and being able to identify the Earth.  In this space lesson plan students complete a set of calculations to see if this is possible. 

In this stars rise in the east activity, students use geometry to show how the Earth rotates from west to east and why celestial bodies appear to rise in the east and set in the west. Students draw a figure and label given points in...

Each member of a four-student group takes on a specific aspect of an assigned planet to research. After gathering information, the team works together to create a travel brochure and a presentation intended to convince other classmates...

Students are introduced to Earth Day and the importance of this day. They make a collage, students can use articles, pictures, words, etc., in magazines or newspapers or online, that relate to Earth Day, the environment and environmental...

Here is your go-to student resource on primary geography concepts, including facts about the surface of the earth and its hemispheres, latitude and longitude, globes, types of maps, and identifying continents and oceans.

Fly around the Martian surface. Pupils view a presentation on the planet Mars featuring a flyover that shows different views of the surface where rovers have landed and explored on different missions. As individuals watch the images, the...

Challenge young astronomers to demonstrate their knowledge of the solar system with this fun open-ended science project. Provided with a short list of requirements, students are given the freedom to use their creativity and whatever...

Trying to understand the vastness of outer space can be quite a challenge for young scientists. Help put things in perspective with this cross-curricular activity as students work in pairs creating scaled models of...

Take a field trip around Earth by way of satellite images. Learners watch a video lesson that describes different images taken from orbiting satellites. They then test their visual skills in a 14-question online quiz. 

Students build a scaled model of the solar system. In this space science activity, students arrange them according to their distances from the sun. They analyze each planet's unique features such as density and relative gravity.

Winter, spring, summer, and fall—take the learning of the seasons beyond the elementary level to the middle school classroom. Curious learners begin by watching videos about the seasons and the rotation of planet Earth. Then,...

How do greenhouse gases affect the climate on Earth?  Pupils explore the concept by first building their own apparatuses to model the greenhouse effect. Then, they record data to measure temperature change and determine...

It is recommended that you conduct this fabulous experiment as a whole-class demonstration. Collect air samples from the environment, human exhalation, and car exhaust, then compare them for carbon dioxide content using bromthymol blue...

Analyze the flight of a thrown ball. Learners determine the maximum height of a thrown ball and the time it takes to hit the ground given its initial speed. They continue to review different scenarios with different maximums or...

Your class will watch as one child orbits the sun as Earth, while another orbits as Mars. If the timing is right, they will see the repetitive dance between the two planets and discover how often they are opposite from each other. For...

You may not be able to take a field trip to the moon, but that doesn't mean your class can't study moon rocks. Using graham crackers as the moon's bedrock and powdered donuts as micrometeorites, young scientists simulate...

Students work in groups to define and research the terms: ozone, troposphere and stratosphere. Students watch videos, conduct Internet research, participate in discussion groups and complete worksheets.

Earth's magnetic poles switch positions about every 200,000—300,000 years. In the activity, groups create a planet with a magnetic field. Once made, they use a magnetometer to determine the orientation of the planet's magnetic field....

Here is a fantastic, educational handout packed with information and facts not only about the planets in our solar system, but also regarding major moons and their surface features, dwarf planets, comets, and asteroids. 

It is just magnetic. This resource presents the concept of Earth's and another planet's magnetic field and how spacecrafts detect them. Learners study a problem using magnetometers and participate in three experiments to come up with a...

Students make several models of the solar system to learn the positions of the planets in the solar system as well as relative distances and sizes. Creation of these models will help them identify the planets by size, shape, color,...