This November, we celebrate 20 years of continuous human presence on the International Space Station--an incredible example of international cooperation.

Watch the sixth episode of our #EZScience series to learn about the 30th anniversary of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

Earth Day is a time for raising awareness and appreciation for our environment. Children will learn the importance of their home planet and about the three R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

This activity poses the question: What would happen if a meteor or comet impacted Earth? Students simulate an impact in a container of sand using various-sized rocks, all while measuring, recording and graphing results and conclusions. Then students brainstorm ways to prevent an object from hitting the Earth.

This is a project to assist in the design, drawing, modeling and hopefully constructing of a small Community Children’s Center near Guayaquil, Ecuador. For the last year, Nicki Lehrer, from MIT’s Aero/Astro Department, has been organizing efforts to build the project. The goal of the workshop is to provide her with a full fleshed out design for the community center so it can be built in the summer of 2007.

Students act as Mars exploratory rover engineers. They evaluate rover equipment options and determine what parts fit in a provided NASA budget. With a given parts list, teams use these constraints to design for their rover. The students build and display their edible rover at a concluding design review.

Space is one of the seven basic building blocks of art along with Line, Form, Shape, Value, Color, and Texture. Using site specific art as a starting point, we highlight the techniques that artists use to control and manipulate space in their work.

Value is one of the seven basic building blocks of art along with Line, Form, Shape, Color, Space, and Texture. Through the lens of black and white photography, we look at how artists produce value scales and contrast, and how different kinds of lines change the way we perceive depth and space. Learn how different values can invoke different emotions in this video.

Where is humanity going? How realistic is a future of fusion and space colonies? What constraints are imposed by physics, by resource availability, and by human psychology? Are default expectations grounded in reality?

This textbook, written for a general-education audience, aims to address these questions without either the hype or the indifference typical of many books. The message throughout is that humanity faces a broad sweep of foundational problems as we inevitably transition away from fossil fuels and confront planetary limits in a host of unprecedented ways—a shift whose scale and probable rapidity offers little historical guidance.

Salvaging a decent future requires keen awareness, quantitative assessment, deliberate preventive action, and—above all—recognition that prevailing assumptions about human identity and destiny have been cruelly misshapen by the profoundly unsustainable trajectory of the last 150 years. The goal is to shake off unfounded and unexamined expectations, while elucidating the relevant physics and encouraging greater facility in quantitative reasoning.

After addressing limits to growth, population dynamics, uncooperative space environments, and the current fossil underpinnings of modern civilization, various sources of alternative energy are considered in detail— assessing how they stack up against each other, and which show the greatest potential. Following this is an exploration of systemic human impediments to effective and timely responses, capped by guidelines for individual adaptations resulting in reduced energy and material demands on the planet’s groaning capacity. Appendices provide refreshers on math and chemistry, as well as supplementary material of potential interest relating to cosmology, electric transportation, and an evolutionary perspective on humanity’s place in nature.

Corrections and feedback can be left at https://tmurphy.physics.ucsd.edu/energy-text/

This unit covers the broad spectrum of topics that make-up our very amazing human body. Students are introduced to the space environment and learn the major differences between the environment on Earth and that of outer space. The engineering challenges that arise because of these discrepancies are also discussed. Then, students dive into the different components that make up the human body: muscles, bones and joints, the digestive and circulatory systems, the nervous and endocrine systems, the urinary system, the respiratory system, and finally the immune system. Students learn about the different types of muscles in the human body and the effects of microgravity on muscles. Also, they learn about the skeleton, the number of and types of bones in the body, and how outer space affects astronauts' bones. In the lessons on the digestive, circulatory, nervous and endocrine systems, students learn how these vital system work and the challenges faced by astronauts whose systems are impacted by spaceflight. And lastly, advances in engineering technology are discussed through the lessons on the urinary, respiratory and immune systems while students learn how these systems work with all the other body components to help keep the human body healthy.

The Fifth Grade Elementary Framework for Science and Integrated Subjects,Earth and Space: Patterns in the Sky, uses the phenomena of perceived sun and moon movements that seem to move around the Earth to explore stars, Earth orbit and rotation and moon orbit around Earth.  It is part of Elementary Framework for Science and Integrated Subjects project, a statewide Clime Time collaboration among ESD 123, ESD 105, North Central ESD, and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Development of the resources is in response to a need for research- based science lessons for elementary teachers that are integrated with English language arts, mathematics and other subjects such as social studies. The template for Elementary Science and Integrated Subjects  can serve as an organized, coherent and research-based roadmap for teachers in the development of their own NGSS aligned science lessons.  Lessons can also be useful for classrooms that have no adopted curriculum as well as to serve as enhancements for  current science curriculum. The EFSIS project brings together grade level teams of teachers to develop lessons or suites of lessons that are 1) pnenomena based, focused on grade level Performance Expectations, and 2) leverage ELA and Mathematics Washington State Learning Standards.

Students create their own simple compasses using thread, needle and water in a bowl and learn how it works.

The First Grade Elementary Framework for Science and Integrated Subjects, Sky Explorers uses observation of the sun and moon in the sky as a phenomena for exploring patterns of objects in the sky.  It is part of Elementary Framework for Science and Integrated Subjects project, a statewide Clime Time collaboration among ESD 123, ESD 105, North Central ESD, and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Development of the resources is in response to a need for research- based science lessons for elementary teachers that are integrated with English language arts, mathematics and other subjects such as social studies. The template for Elementary Science and Integrated Subjects  can serve as an organized, coherent and research-based roadmap for teachers in the development of their own NGSS aligned science lessons.  Lessons can also be useful for classrooms that have no adopted curriculum as well as to serve as enhancements for  current science curriculum. The EFSIS project brings together grade level teams of teachers to develop lessons or suites of lessons that are 1) pnenomena based, focused on grade level Performance Expectations, and 2) leverage ELA and Mathematics Washington State Learning Standards.

Course Contents 1. Turning performance (three dimensional equations of motion, coordinate systems, Euler angles, transformation matrices)
2. Airfield performance (take-off and landing)
3. Unsteady climb and descent (including minimum time to climb problem)
4. Cruise flight and transport performance
5. Equations of motion with a wind gradient present
6. Equations of motion applied to various phases of space flight
7. Launch, Vertical flight, delta-V budget, burn out height, staging
8. Gravity perturbations to satellite orbits, J2 effect for low earth orbit satellites, J2,2 effect for Geostationary Earth Orbit sattelites leading to contribution in V budget
9. Patched conics approach for interplanetary flight, gravity assist effect / options for change of excess velocity (2d, 3d), Launch, in orbit insertion.
Study Goals 1. Integrate fundamental disciplines (aero, power and propulsion, mechanics..) to describe the kinematics of aerospace vehicles satisfying real world constraints
2. Derive equations of motion for elementary flight and mission phases (climb, turn, cruise, take-off, launch, orbit)
3. Derive analytical expressions for optimal performance (steepest turn, Breguet Range, patched conics, J2, maneuvers )
4. Determine pros/cons of multi-stage launchers.
5. Assess sun lighting conditions on a satellite.
6. Determine the influence of wind (gradient) on aircraft motion and performance.
7. Develop the theory to describe an interplanetary trajectory as a succession of two-body problems, and apply this concept to real missions.

Snack like an astronaut! Make a PBJ sandwich fit for the space station

The solar system has smaller objects like asteroids, meteors and comets that make a big impact. In this story we learn more about these small but interesting objects.

The friends are inspired while cleaning their rooms to return to their fantasy space story and imagine how their robot and alien characters could clean up space junk.

"Family of the Sun," which tells the story of the planets in our solar system. After the story, do a craft to make a solar system playset.

Gather your little ones for a special Halloween-themed story time with the National Air and Space Museum. Museum educator Ann Caspari reads an original story and leads us in a craft.