Learning About the Moon Can Be Made Fun for Children with Hands-On, Educational Activities

Outreach:

The unconventional way of learning conventional information

Giordin Perlman

Meridee Silbaugh

University of Colorado at Boulder

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Outreach is underrated 2

What is outreach? 3

Why is outreach important? 3

How Space Grant is involved with Outreach 3

New Outreach ideas 4

Satellite Dataflow Demonstration 6

Conclusion 7

References 8

Figure 1 9

Appendix A 10 - 15

OUTREACH IS UNDERRATED:

Outreach is extremely important because it is the one of the main activities that can interest children in space. If outreach is done in new and innovative ways, children and people of all ages will see how much fun learning about space can be. If students can’t be shown how much fun space and science is, where will the future engineers and astronauts come from? It’s important to spark interest in elementary students because at that age their desire to learn must be sated or be doomed to fade as they start to associate being “smart” with being “uncool”. Therefore, new ways must be found to teach space science to elementary school kids. Here at Colorado Space Grant, learning about space can be incorporated in hands-on learning act ivies that teach students about space, science, and engineering, through various outreaches that are offered.

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WHAT IS OUTREACH?

Outreach is a very important aspect of education, and yet there are many people who don't know what outreach is. Outreach is the act of reaching out to children and people of all ages to educate them and interest them in a particular educational topic. In this case, science, engineering, and space! Outreaches often times are organized by a particular group and/or organization that wishes to spread the word of their current project, and inspire young children to learn.

There are many different types of educational outreaches, which are different from company outreaches, because educational outreaches focus on educating students of all ages about intellectual subjects. When a school either contacts or is contacted by an organization about outreach, they have various options to choose from. These options include: someone coming to the school to give a presentation, students traveling to the organization for a tour, having an outreach that includes a lecture and handouts, or a hands on learning activity for the students; often times outreach is an unconventional way of learning conventional information.

WHY IS OUTREACH IMPORTANT?

Outreach is important at Space Grant because it interests kindergarten students through college students is space and science, and gives Space Grant students an opportunity to develop public speaking skills.

K-12 students need outreach to create additional interest that they otherwise might not get from the standard school setting that allows little room for imagination and hands-on understanding. By taking them out of their classroom setting and making learning seem like a fun game, the children are more likely to retain the information and keep an ongoing interest in the set subject.

Involving Space Grant students in outreach gives them the opportunity to develop public speaking. Outreach gets them comfortable with communication and interaction with others.

Outreach is especially important for young kids. Elementary students are sponges, absorbing every bit of information given to them. Interest in space and science must be instilled at that young age because as they get older they start to develop the, "Being smart is not cool" syndrome. Therefore, new innovative ways are constantly trying to be developed to teach space science to elementary school kids.

HOW SPACE GRANT IS INVOLVED IN OUTREACH:

One of the current satellites at Colorado Space Grant in Boulder is called Citizen Explorer. One of the satellite objectives is to provide environmental and space education for K-12 students. This is being done by incorporating the data the satellite collects to study the ozone, in hands-on outreaches that explore different variable that contribute to the success of a working satellite. These variables include subjects like Aerosols, Ultra Violet light, Ozone, Space, Orbits, Gravity, Rockets, and of course, Engineering. It is the job of the Citizen Explorer Education Team to provide the opportunity for K-12 teachers and students to participate in an innovative program that will excite students to learn otherwise abstract concepts, understand the environment, and comprehend space technologies. The program is tailored to enhance their interest in the field of engineering and the frontier of space.

Space Grant does not want to limit itself to the subjects only connected with it's projects though. All subjects that fall under the categories of space, engineering, or science, lie in the interested domain. This is why new ideas are constantly being developed, especially ideas and outreaches that involve, and are comprehendible, to young children. Those who will keep the interest they gain from the outreach alive until later in their schooling when they can take that interest and feed it to their hearts desire.

NEW OUTREACH IDEAS:

à Learning about the moon can be made fun for children with hands-on, educational activities. Students can be encouraged to sketch and describe nightly observations of the moon in order to help students recognize Moon phases, and dark and bright terrains of the moon. Scale models can be made of the earth and the moon to teach children concepts such as size of the moon compared to Earth, the distance from Earth to the moon. These models can also be made detailed enough to teach children about the moon’s surface and terrain.

à Children can learn about planets and the solar system by creating scaled three-dimensional models of the solar system, planets, and the sun. Mobiles, for example, can be created by hanging balls of different sizes from the ceiling with string, representing the planets, and placing them in the correct order from a central ball that represents the sun.

à Allowing students to test materials on their own, under different conditions, can demonstrate the importance of testing materials for a spacecraft. Some materials that can be tested by students include rubber bands, aluminum foil, small portions of silicone caulk, and plastic packaging material. The students can then subject the materials to different sorts of tests to examine the changes in the material. Some tests that can be performed include: freezing the sample, heating the sample, keeping the sample in a tightly closed glass jar placed in a warm place for a few days, exposing the sample to sunlight for a days or weeks, exposing the sample to large amounts of air pollution, soaking the sample in a liquid (water, vinegar, soda, motor oil, cooking oil, alcohol, detergent, etc.) boiling the sample, keeping a stretchy sample of material stretched for several days or stretching it many times. After the test, students can analyze certain aspects of the materials, such as elasticity, brittleness, strength, color, transparency, light reflection, texture, odor, etc.

à Assign students the task of working in groups to develop a spacecraft which will fly people safely to the Moon to land, then return to Earth. Having the students chose a safe and interesting lunar landing site for the spacecraft emphasizes aspects of the moon and lunar landings. Children can be taught and encouraged to consider size, mass, propulsion, number of crew, life support systems, and methods of takeoff and landing for the spacecraft; and geology, terrain, safety, and length of stay should be considered for the lunar landing site. Students can be given certain aspects of the project that they will only work on. The different parts of the project can then be combined and revised as necessary to form the final product. This demonstrates the concept of subsystems, allowing children to better understand engineering, and working in teams or sub-teams to complete an engineering task.

à Model rockets can be designed and built by students to teach them concepts such as the laws of physics, lift, thrust, drag, spin, etc. Rocket launches can be simulated using water pumps, launching the rocket using built up air pressure, using antacid tablets to produce the pressure necessary to launch the rocket, or balloons, which can demonstrate the loss of fuel as a rocket is launched. Children can be encouraged to test and re-engineer the rockets they build, and participate in rocket launch competitions or races. The concept of payloads can be incorporated by giving students something that the rocket must carry. Students can then experiment with engineering to find the best rocket design.

*An effective method of retaining the attention and interest of children is to involve them in activities in which they are allowed to move about, rather than requiring them to sit still and watch, or listen to a demonstration. Such activities can be created to teach children about concepts like gravity, orbits, and satellite communication.

à The concept of gravity is a difficult one for children to understand yet it can be demonstrated in activities in which students use their own bodies to create models of the solar system, the forces the sun and planets exert on each other, and on passing objects such as spacecraft. A three-person model can be created to demonstrate the concept of a spacecraft borrowing energy from a planet’s gravitational pull. Two partners, representing a two-body gravitational system, face each other, reaching with outstretched arms to grab hands. They lean back to create tension, and one person (preferably the smaller) “orbits” the other, at a fairly rapid, yet controllable pace. One student represents the sun, and the smaller student represents planet orbiting the much larger sub. The third person represents the “spacecraft." The spacecraft approaches the orbiting “planet.” The spacecraft borrows energy by grabbing onto the shoulder of the “planet”, thereby acquiring the energy needed to create acceleration. It is therefore demonstrated to the children that as the spacecraft makes “gravitational” contact, the two person “planetary” system undergoes a real energy transfer as momentary drag, and the spacecraft gains a boost of energy as acceleration, causing it to speed up and change direction.

à Students can also actively model specific spacecraft flights such a Deep Space 1, teaching them the concepts of orbits, gravitational fields, and how spacecrafts are launched and remain in orbit to perform their task. Using their own bodies, students can model Deep Space 1’s launch, final rocket boost out of Earth’s orbit, activation of its ion engine, orbital transfer maneuver, and asteroid rendezvous, as influenced by the gravitation fields of earth and sun. Seven or eight students represent the sun by standing in a central circle, facing outward, using their hands to “mime” an invisible gravitational field. These students can work together to create series of wave motions that represent the attractive force of gravity. Three or four more students form a circle facing outward to represent Earth, standing some distance away from the sun, also using their hands to create an invisible gravitational field around the planet. The Earth group moves around the sun, simulating the gravitational attraction between the sun and the Earth and the centripetal acceleration that allows the Earth to remain in orbit around the sun. One student represents the asteroid that Deep Space 1 will encounter. The asteroid moves through an eccentric elliptical orbit coming in just beyond Earth’s orbit. One more student represents Deep Space 1, and demonstrates first, the effect of the powerful thrust needed to escape Earth’s gravity at a launch to reach an orbit around Earth. When the Deep Space 1 student is positioned and orbiting just right, he or she demonstrates the thrust of the final rocket stage that sends the spacecraft into its own orbit around the sun. This student then demonstrates the start-up of the ion engine by slightly accelerating pushing it into a new orbit farther from the sun. As Deep Space 1 approaches the point in its new orbit opposite the launch point, the asteroid approaches in its orbit to meet up with Deep Space 1. Deep Space 1 takes pictures, measurements, etc., then the asteroid and the spacecraft continue on their separate orbits.

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DATAFLOW DEMONSTRATION FOR THE CITIZEN EXPLORER SATELITE:

Purpose:

Create an activity that demonstrates to students the communications path between Space Grant and the Citizen Explorer-I satellite, showing how scientific data can be downloaded from the satellite for analysis on

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Earth. The demonstration can also be used to illustrate how the instruments on the satellite are commanded by Space Grant students on Earth. It gives students a feel for the dynamics of satellite communications and orbital motion around the Earth.

Background Information:

Students should be given a one-page handout, the concept architecture that illustrates the data flow (Shown at the end of this paper as Figure 1). A brief explanation of the data flow path should be given before beginning the demonstration (see chart). Students should be briefly informed of the concept of the sun synchronous orbit, the satellite will be over any one point on the Earth twice a day.

As a visual, students or the teacher can have a cutout model of citizen explorer satellite. A handout can be given to students containing information about Citizen Explorer, including its sun synchronous orbits, science instruments, gravity gradient boom, ground instruments, Edustation, Space Grant Mission Operations, and ozone and UV measurement information. (Some examples of sheets that could be used for background information are located in appendix A.)

Demonstration Requirements:

The demonstration would require the participation of at least 7 students. Each student will represent a different aspect of the path. At least three students will stand together representing the sun, one or more students will represent the ozone, two students will represent stations on Earth - one students will represent the ground instruments, and one student will represent Space Grant’s database - and finally, one student will represent the satellite itself. The demonstration will require at least 3 “sunlight balls,” and signs that students can wear around their necks to identify which part of the path they represent.

Arrangement of Participants (before the demonstration begins):

Position the “sun” students in the center of the room or area where the demonstration will take place. Position all of the “Earth” students at a reasonable distance from the sun in a circle. The “ozone” students should be positioned between the sun and the Earth. (If there are many students, the ozone students should be positioned surrounding the circle of Earth students.) The satellite should be placed between the “sun” and the “ozone.”