Star Stuff

The Hubble Space Telescope has provided a wealth of scientific information and beautiful space pictures. The folks behind that project have created a wonderful set of classroom teaching tools that draw on research done using the huge apparatus. The section “Astronomy basics” will help you answer many of your student’s questions, while “Teaching tools” contains lessons, activities, related links, and even graphic organizers. Created by: The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD. Don’t Miss: Looking for creative astronomy activities for grades 3–12? Then click on the “Resources with Educator Guides” link in the “Teaching tools” section.

Exploring Planets in the Classroom
www.spacegrant.hawaii.edu/class_acts/index.html

This site, which includes 25 excellent hands-on activities for grades 3–12, started out as a summer workshop for teachers at the University of Hawaii. Now any educator can access these classroom-tested activities that also meet science standards. Printables include teacher and student pages, as well as charts and fact sheets. Created by: University of Hawaii Space Grant Consortium, Honolulu, HI.

Eyes on the Sky, Feet on the Ground
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/ECT/

This great online “activity book” created by the Smithsonian Institution and Harvard University is divided into six chapters. Each one is filled with hands-on astronomy activities for kids in grades 3–12. Don’t Miss: Click on the “Everyday Classroom Tools” link to find space-related thematic units that include both teacher and student PDF documents. Share this site with a science teacher today!

NASA Education
education.nasa.gov/home/index.html

For space and astronomy teaching resources from NASA, here’s where to start. On the home page, simply click on “For Educators” to find class resources arranged by grade level (K–4, 5–8, 9–12). Each grade level provides appropriate links to both Internet and multimedia resources. Don’t Miss: While viewing any of the grade level pages, click on the “Educational Materials” link to access even more stuff. Detour: Another great NASA site for activities and lessons is the Space Educator’s Handbook available at vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh.

SEGway for Educators
cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/segway/educators_resources.html

Another quick way to find space-related resources is to use SEGway to help you troll the Web. From the home page, click on “SEGway Lessons” to select a topic or click on the entire lesson list. Here you’ll also find SSERD (Space Science Education Research Directory), a search tool that will help you find astronomy- and space-related class resources by grade range, topic, or subject. Created by: The Center for Science Education, University of California, Berkeley.