Sept. 20, 2006: Changing Our Views of Space

The Mini Page is a syndicated, four-page tabloid written for young children found each Wednesday in the Rocky Mountain News. This issue of The Mini Page is available through the eEdition Archive to registered eEdition subscribers. Click here to learn about subscribing to the eEdition at no cost to you (for Colorado teachers).

Activities:

1. Draw a rocket in the middle of a piece of paper. Now cut out newspaper words and pictures that are about space, space travel and planets. Use the words and pictures to make a space mission collage. Be sure to look in the sports and weather pages for words.

2. Make up a sentence to help you remember the planets in the solar system. Use the first letter from each planet¹s name for a word you can use in your sentence.

3. List the planets and moons that appear to have liquid on them. What types of liquid have scientists found or expect to find on each planet/moon? Why is liquid, especially water, so important to scientists?

4. Which planets have been explored through (a) orbiters, (b) spacecraft flying past them, (c) probes that land on the planet/moon, and (d) humans walking on the planet/moon?

5. Use the Internet to learn more about what scientists now know about one of the planets in our solar system. Use these questions to guide your research:

• What is your planet?
• When was it discovered?
• What do scientists know or expect to find out about its physical makeup?
• How many moons does it have?
• What has NASA done to explore the planet?
• What is the latest information scientists have learned about it?
  
  

This week's standards:

• Students develop an understanding of objects in the sky. (Science: Earth and Space Science)
• Students understand science and technology. (Science: Science and Technology)
  
  

(standards by Dr. Sherrye D. Garrett, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi)