Designing a Mars Rover
A couple of weeks ago I published an all about Mars post that included a video from SciShowKids titled Meet the Mars Rovers! SciShow Kids has published a follow-up to that video. The follow-up is titled How to Design a Mars Rover! How to Design a Mars Rover! explains to elementary school students how scientists […]
225 NASA Infographics
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory website contains a large library of infographics that you can download and print for free. The library contains infographics about spacecraft, exploration missions, planets, moons, the solar system, and comets. I downloaded the What is a Comet Made Of? infographic that you see pictured below. Applications for Education If printed in […]
Free Webinar – Using Rockets to Investigate Forces and Motion
The Smithsonian Learning Lab hosts a regular series of free professional development webinars for teachers. The next one is titled Using Rockets to Investigate Forces and Motion. The free webinar will be on Tuesday, April 11th at 4pm ET. The Smithsonian hosts the webinars on YouTube which means you don’t need to register to attend. […]
Fun Games for Learning About Space
NASA Kids’ Club is a collection games, interactive activities, and images for students in Kindergarten through fourth grade. At the center of the NASA Kids’ Club is a set of games and interactive activities arranged on five skill levels. The activities range from simple things like guessing numbers in “Airplane High Low” to more difficult […]
225 NASA Infographics
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory website contains a large library of infographics that you can download and print for free. The library contains infographics about spacecraft, exploration missions, planets, moons, the solar system, and comets. I downloaded the What is Comet Made Of? infographic that you see pictured below. Applications for Education If printed in color, […]
Climate Kids Helps Kids Learn About Climate Change
NASA’s Climate Kids website has many excellent online and offline resources for teaching students about climate change. One of those resources is the Big Questions page. The Big Questions page guides students through the basic concepts and issues related to climate change. Six big questions are featured on the page. Students select a question to discover the answers […]
A Dozen Neat NASA Resources for Students and Teachers
On Thursday I wrote about NASA’s From Hidden to Modern Figures collection of videos and lesson plans. Creating that blog post inspired me to look through my archives for some of the other neat NASA resources that I’ve found and shared over the years. Here they are in no particular order. The Langley Research Center […]
NASA From Hidden to Modern Figures
NASA’s From Hidden to Modern Figures is an excellent resource for teaching about the women who made significant contributions to the development of NASA’s space program. The site features written and video biographies of Katherine Johnson, Mary W. Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan who were instrumental in many of NASA’s missions including the first orbit of […]
700 Space Math Problems
Space Math is a NASA website containing space-themed math lessons for students in elementary school through high school. This evening I revisited for the first time in a couple of years and noticed that it now offers more than 700 math problems related to space and space exploration. On Space Math you can search for problems […]
My NASA Data Story Maps – Lesson Plans Based on NASA Data
A few weeks ago I published a summary of nine neat NASA resources for teachers and students. Shortly after that I received an email from someone at NASA who pointed me in the direction of My NASA Data. My NASA Data is much more than just a collection of datasets published by NASA. My NASA […]
Nine Neat NASA Resources for Students and Teachers – Updated
Years ago I published a list of nine neat NASA resources for students and teachers. At the time the list was current. Over the weekend someone emailed me to point out that few of them were no longer available due to the deprecation of Flash. Here’s my updated list of neat NASA resources for students […]
NASA ScienceCasts Explains the Harvest Moon – It’s Tonight!
Tonight is the night of the annual Harvest Moon in the northern hemisphere. The harvest moon comes on a different evening each year. If the weather is cooperative, tonight will be a great evening to get pictures of the moon rising. I hope that this year is the year I finally get a good one. […]
NASA Selfies – Put Yourself in Space and Learn a Bit About It
NASA Selfies is a fun and free app for “taking a selfie in space.” What it really does is just put your face into the helmet of a space suit that is floating in space. You can pick the background for your space selfie. Backgrounds are provided from NASA’s huge library of images. When you […]
Spacecraft AR – Explore NASA Spacecraft With Augmented Reality
Spacecraft AR is a free iPad and Android app offered by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The app enables students to learn about various NASA spacecraft including the Curiosity rover, Voyager, Mars Exploration Rover, and a handful of other spacecraft. Spacecraft AR includes information about each spacecraft’s development and use. With Spacecraft AR installed and open […]
NASA Artifacts for Schools
Thanks to my friend Steve Dembo this morning I learned about a U.S. General Services Administration program that lets schools acquire artifacts from NASA’s space program. The program has two parts. One part lets schools, museums, and similar organizations borrow artifacts. The other program lets schools acquire artifacts for no cost other than shipping fees. The […]
Best of 2018 – NASA’s Interactive Guide to the Solar System
This week is a vacation week for the vast majority of readers of this blog. As I do at this time every year, I’m going to republish some of the most popular posts of 2018. Here’s one from April. I have been reviewing and sharing sharing resources from NASA for almost as long as this […]
How GPS Works
From finding a place to eat in a new city to navigating a detour to geocaching, GPS is an amazing technology. But just how does GPS work? NASA’s eClips channel on YouTube has a good student-friendly explanation of how GPS works. Applications for Education Geocaching is a fun activity for students to do to learn about latitude […]
Check Out NASA’s Interactive Guide to the Solar System
The new school year will be here soon and I haven’t taken a break all summer. I’m taking a short break from the Internet to go fishing at one of my favorite places in the world, Kennebago Lake. I’ll be back with new posts on Saturday. While I’m gone I’ll be republishing some of the […]
Climate Kids’ Big Questions Teaches Students About Climate Change
NASA’s Climate Kids website has many excellent online and offline resources for teaching students about climate change. One of those resources is the Big Questions wheel. The Big Questions wheel guides students through the basic concepts and issues related to climate change. Seven big questions are featured in the wheel. Students select a question to […]
NASA’s Interactive Guide to the Solar System
I have been reviewing and sharing sharing resources from NASA for almost as long as this blog has existed. Somehow, I missed NASA’s Solar System Exploration until it was mentioned last week on Maps Mania. NASA’s Solar System Exploration website contains interactive displays of the planets, dwarf planets, and moons of our solar system. To […]
Rocket Science 101 – Build and Launch Virtual Rockets
Update, January 2021: This app is no longer available. Rocket Science 101 is a free app offered by NASA that helps students understand how rockets work. The app also helps students understand the differences between the four types of rockets most frequently used by NASA. In Rocket Science 101 students can build all four rockets in […]
NASA Kids’ Club – Fun Games for Learning About Space
NASA Kids’ Club is a collection games, interactive activities, and images for students in Kindergarten through fourth grade. At the center of the NASA Kids’ Club is a set of games and interactive activities arranged on five skill levels. The activities range from simple things like guessing numbers in “Airplane High Low” to more difficult […]
Resources to Learn About Outer Space
Outer space is one of the most fascinating topics for students of all ages. Whether your students are learning about the moon or exploring a distant solar system, these resources are sure to pique their interest. Planets– This website from NASA has beautiful imagery and diagrams of each of the planets, information about different missions, […]
Extreme Planet Makeover
Extreme Planet Makeover is an interactive activity produced by NASA as a part of the Exoplanet Exploration website. Extreme Planet Makeover lets students choose the size of a planet, position relative to the largest and nearest star, and planet age. Students instantly get feedback on the characteristics of the planets they create. For example, if […]
The Harvest Moon Explained by NASA
The astronomical start of autumn is less than two weeks away. But this year the Harvest Moon that is typically associated with Fall is occurring a little later than usual. What is the Harvest Moon? Do other full moons have names too? Those questions and others are answered in NASA Sciencecasts: The Harvest Moon.
Print Dozens of NASA Infographics or Make Your Own
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory website contains a large library of infographics that you can download and print for free. The library contains infographics about spacecraft, exploration missions, planets, moons, the solar system, and comets. I downloaded the What is Comet Made Of? infographic that you see pictured below. Applications for Education If printed in color, […]
Explore NASA Spacecraft in 3D
Spacecraft 3D is a free iPad app produced by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Spacecraft 3D uses augmented reality technology to bring NASA spacecraft to life on your iPad. To get started using the app you first need to print out the spacecraft target codes. Then your students can scan those target codes with their iPads. […]
The Climate Time Machine
Crafting my previous post about 40 years of snow data reminded me of a neat climate change demonstration for kids. NASA’s Climate Time Machine is one of many activities that students can complete on NASA’s Climate Kids website. The Climate Time Machine is essentially an interactive timeline that lets students see the changes in the […]
More Resources for Teaching and Learning About Flight #STEM
On Sunday I wrote a post about an interactive timeline of the developments made by the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss. Here are some more resources for teaching and learning about developments in aerospace. America by Air online exhibit is a series of thirteen online activities that take students through the history of commercial aviation in […]