Thanks to numerous events occurring this school year, it’s an exciting time for those of us that teach about space and space travel! From solar eclipses to developments in NASA鈥檚 Artemis programs, this school year offers unique opportunities to spark students鈥� interest in our galaxy.
51探花 has a wealth of resources to support educators teaching students about these events, as well as ways to add context to student learning by connecting scientific principles to space content.
Starting Your Space Exploration
For younger students, you can introduce the excitement of space with fun animated segments such as and ! There are many ways to make your space lessons fun, exciting, and best of all, relevant! If you aren鈥檛 sure where to infuse space content into your science lessons, finding space-related events that are coming up and using these events to build context for your students can help the introduction feel meaningful.
The upcoming Artemis missions will create a ton of excitement as the four-astronaut crew was recently named and we are moving closer to the November 2024 launch date! 51探花 has some terrific resources to share in the聽聽on the historic missions to the moon, such as聽, as well as information about the聽, and an overview of the partnership with NASA and SpaceX in聽.
The upcoming solar eclipses are other exciting space events you can connect into your lessons! An annular solar eclipse occurred on October 14, 2023, and a total solar eclipse will occur on April 8, 2024. The has great resources, videos, and activities for students in grades K-12 that both describe the natural phenomenon of an eclipse.聽
Eclipses are unique solar events, and after the April 8 total solar eclipse, the next eclipse won’t occur over the United States until 2044! 51探花 Experience has new resources to help students explore the wonders of this upcoming eclipse such as a video on , activity to , and a video giving students a . NASA is also so students can watch as the total solar eclipse moves across Mexico, the United States and Canada.聽
Additional Solar Eclipse Resources
Creating Relevant, Fun Learning Opportunities
Adding a short, creative project-based learning element to your lessons around these current events can bring some additional engagement and excitement, even for students who may not think they鈥檙e passionate about space topics. For example, you can incorporate 聽to allow students to 鈥渧isit鈥� another planet’s surface or launch and fly a rocket in聽, which can bring the space concepts of a lesson to life. The offers fun ideas that pair with the state-of-the-art, life-size augmented reality featured in .
Gamification and animation can make any topic fun and offer students a chance to use new technology tools! By using a free tool like Animate with Audio in Adobe Express, students can research a mission, planet, moon, or other phenomena and then . This is always fun because the games can be played outside of the classroom with friends, family, and future students for years to come!
Resources like these are only the start, as there are so many amazing videos, articles, interactives, and more to discover. Even virtual field trips like the , which includes an interview with NASA astronauts and program executives about the Curiosity mission and the ultimate goal, a journey to Mars! Start with one space lesson around a current event and create interested students who want to blast off to further exploration!
