Activity 11: Space Technology (SI GLEs: 18, 35, 38, 39, 40; ESS GLEs: 48, 49)
CC: Have the students research the observations of Mars made by Percival Lowell in the early 1900s. Have the students compare what Lowell theorized about Mars and what we know about it today.
WORLD BOOOK http://www.worldbookonline.com GALE
MARS by Percival Lowell, 1895 http://www.wanderer.org/references/lowell/Mars/
CC: Research Project: Students will research an invention, prepare a report, and provide a presentation to the class of their space spin-off product resulting from new technology breakthrough in the space program. They will provide a picture/sample of their invention or product to display in the classroom. Examples could include bar codes, satellite dishes, cordless tools, composite materials in sports equipment, Velcro, smoke detectors, edible toothpaste, fire-fighting equipment, joysticks, invisible braces, shock-absorbing helmets, ski boots, thermal gloves and boots, toys, etc.
Teacher may want to use the websites listed below to facilitate student research.
NASA http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html?skipIntro=1
History of Space Exploration http://www.solarviews.com/eng/history.htm
Astronomy History & Space Exploration Historyhttp://space.about.com/od/astronomyspacehistory/
For the Timeline construction, students could use Timeliner 5.0. It would also be a good idea to create a separate timeline which just covers the past 50 years or so, due to the vast amount of advancement in knowledge and space exploration.
The research project portion of this activity would benefit from PowerPoint presentations which could be shown to the class. Also a cumulative presentation could be made using one or two slides from each of the student presentations which would then show all of these "space program spin-off products". |