Classroom Lessons

I. Mission Solar System – Your explorations begin here. This expanding archive of information, essays, lessons, interactive programs, and experiments will help you form the foundation for your future missions. Marslink®, Moonlink®, and NEARlink® place you inside Mission Control for NASA's Mars Odyssey, Lunar Prospector, and Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous missions. You and your class will take on the responsibilities of engineers and scientists. You can command your own Rover in the new Mars Explorer Simulation. 

II. Orbital Laboratory (fee based) – Explore plant biology in space! Teachers may choose to use only the core module on plants and plants in space which will take 2 to 3 weeks total. They can also extend the unit to include human physiology in space, health and nutrition, and the basics of space flight. There is enough material available here to spend an entire semester in space!

The core module, Plants and Payload 003 involves a plant growth experiment and 7 lessons in which your class will raise USU-Apogee dwarf wheat and Pioneer-soybeans (both genetically selected for optimal growth on the space station.) Students will be responsible for the plants from seed to harvest, collecting data, and sharing it within the Orbital Laboratory On-line Community.

III. K-3 Space® – is a program developed by Space Explorers, Inc.™ in partnership with the Einstein Project. The program is designed to give early elementary students the general knowledge, understanding and skills they need to take an active interest in space. The K-3 Space® program uses both hands-on and computer based activities all delivered via the Internet. Each grade-level unit contains both continual assessment and pre/post assessment activities. K-3 Space® provides a series of grade-level specific lessons that expose students to many of the general principles of space science such as gravity, orbits, reflection of light, phases of the moon, and distances between the Sun, Moon, and planets.