Teacher's Guide for:

Space Pioneers

OBJECTIVES:

• To investigate how our ideas about the universe have changed over time.
• To see how robotic craft tell us a lot about the Earth and the Solar System.
• To visualize how our Moon seems to change shape, or phase.
• To encourage students to become "space pioneers" themselves.

This show conforms to the following state science standards:  12.F.1b, 12.F.2a, 12.F.2b, 12.F.2c, 12.F.3b, 12.F.4a, 13.B.1c

Galileo, Thomas Edison, Columbus, Neil Armstrong, and Voyager 2. What do they have in common? They are all pioneers. A "pioneer" is someone (or something) who does something for the first time. They can be explorers or discoverers or even inventors. We'll see how pioneers have shaped our view of the universe and look at our Moon in the night sky as a part of Space Pioneers, a 45-minute narrated presentation aimed at the 1-4 grade level.

1. What is a "pioneer?" Give an example.
2. Why does our Moon appear to change shape in the sky? Have students make a model of what they think the Moon is doing in space.
3. Observe the Moon on as many nights/mornings as possible beginning two weeks before your planetarium visit.
4. Make a time line of space accomplishments, beginning with Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
5. What do we need to survive in the environment of space?

1. Using a globe and a baseball to represent the Earth and the moon respectively we can illustrate several important concepts about the Earth/Moon/Sun system. Mount a spotlight in the front of a darkened room and illuminate the globe. Half of the globe will be lighted while the other half will be dark. 
   1. Discuss the concepts of day and night. Where is the Sun when we are experiencing night? What parts of the globe are experiencing sunrise? Sunset? Remember that the Earth rotates counter-clockwise when viewed from above the north pole. 
   2. Hold the baseball (or ball of similar size) between the light (Sun) and the globe. How much of the moon do you see if you sight the ball from just over the top of the globe? What is this phase called? (New Moon). Show students that half of the moon is always lighted by the Sun but, if they view the ball from the perspective of the globe, we see different shapes depending on the moon's position. 
   3. Using the model, estimate when the moon will rise and set for each phase. Use reasoning such as this: For the moon to be full it must be opposite the Sun relative to the Earth, therefore the Full Moon must rise as the Sun is setting. 
   4. Discuss both Lunar and Solar Eclipses using the model. Notice how anyone on the dark side of the Earth may see a lunar eclipse but only those in the moon's small shadow are able to see a solar eclipse. During what moon phase do we see each type of eclipse? 
   5. Try placing the moon at its proper scale distance (30 Earth diameters). Have students discuss the emptiness of space. 
2. Let students be assigned to an imaginative mission to one of the planets. How will they get there? How long will it take? What will they find once they arrive? How will they dress on the surface (cold, hot, etc.)? Have them draw a picture of what they think it is like there. 
3. Discuss how artificial satellites that orbit the Earth have revolutionized life on our world. Include applications to weather forecasting, communications, geology, ecology, and ocean research. 
4. Have each student select a space pioneer that interests him or her and give a short report to the class. What did this person (or thing) do to be called a "pioneer?" Here is an incomplete list to help you:
    

   Copernicus	Galileo	Kepler
   Neil Armstrong	Viking probe	Voyager 2
   Columbus	Magellan	Sir Francis Drake
   Lewis & Clark	Robert Goddard	Ham & Laika
   Yuri Gagarin	Alan Shepard	John Glenn
   Thomas Edison	Isaac Newton	Stephen Hawking
   Albert Einstein	Edmund Halley	Sputnik
   Edwin Hubble	Aristotle	Aristarchus
   Buzz Aldrin	Ed White	Robert Crippen
   Michael Collins	Sally Ride	George Washington Carver
   Hypatia	Christa McAuliffe	Guion Bluford

5. Schedule a Parkland College Space Shuttle Spacesuit show for your class or school assembly. The presentation consists of a slide show depicting the use of the suit and a simulated space suit that one of your students (taller than 5'3") may try on for size. Contact the Staerkel Planetarium at 351-2567 for more information.  There is a $50 fee for the show, plus mileage.
6. Find out (using the Internet is best), how to be a space shuttle astronaut. 

INTERNET RESOURCES:

Space Shuttle homepage: http://shuttle.nasa.gov
Space Educator's Handbook: http://tommy.jsc.nasa.gov/~woodfill/spaceed/sehhtml/seh.html
Clementine Lunar Atlas: http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/latest.html
Jet Propulsion Laboratory: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
Astronaut selection: http://www.gene.com/ae/WN/SU/howto.html