Middle school space games

Mars Photo Booth. Put yourself in mission control, or on Mars, next to the rover. Space Forensics Game. Stars exploding? Who would do such a thing? We used the Pitsco rocket launcher and the Estes altimeter for tracking altitude.

Model Rockets: Take rocketry to the next level by building and launching a model rocket kit! From a 10 minute assembly to hours of cutting and painting, kits for various skill levels and time constraints are available. Or apply the design process to a 3D printed rocket that can travel s of feet into the sky. Note: Safety is important! Read about safey regulations and use common sense such as never launching during a thunderstorm or within close proximity to an airport.

While rocketry is a classic space engineerig challenge, there are so many more topics to explore. Here are some favorite STEM space challenges:. Lunar Crater Challenge: Students manipulate the forces of motion to place a ball in a cup at the center of a 6 foot diameter circle without entering the circle. A great connection to space exploration, this engineering design challenge represents placing a NASA rover into the middle of the Apollo lunar crater to explore it as a potential human colony site.

View the full challenge here. Space Lander Challenge: We recently featured this activity as one of our best STEM challenges ever because of the combination of science principles, a fun storyline, simple materials, and use of the design process. In the space lander challenge , Student teams build a lander to keep two marshmallow "aliens" inside a cup as it is dropped from various heights. Using straws, index cards, and mini marshmallows, students apply concepts of shock-absorption, drag forces, and stability, to create and test their designs.

Drag Device Challenge: Without the mess of an egg drop challenge, students build a device to keep a ping pong ball inside their rover during impact. Exploring the forces of gravity and air resistance, students design a drag device to slow down a payload while learning how engineers land rovers on other planets like Mars.

Find more details on this challenge here. Robotics competitions are the most popular of stage 3 STEM projects that bring together research, science concepts, math, and engineering design to solve open-ended problems. Students often present results to technical experts for feedback and evalution. They likely compete against other teams for a thrilling and inspirational experience. Below are two space-themed competitions:.

Team America Rocketry Challenge: Compete with teams across the world on a rocket-twist to the egg-drop activity at the Team America Rocketry Challenge. A handbook is provided to guide students through physics principles and rocketry basics, but be prepared for intensive hands-on building.

This quick demo is a good way to introduce the concept of orbits to little learners, using a pie plate, some playdough, and a ball or marble. She has a degree in Secondary English Education and has taught in middle and high school classrooms.

She's also done training and curriculum design for a financial institution and been a science museum educator. She currently lives in Tampa, Florida where she often works on her back porch while taking frequent breaks for bird-watching and gardening.

You must be logged in to post a comment. We are here to help enhance learning at home! Sign-up to receive weekly teacher tips, fun activities, mindfulness and exercise ideas, and more for grades K Make a model solar system This is one of those classic space activities for kids that everyone should try at least once.

Learn more: Gift of Curiosity 2. Snack on the moon phases What goes better with Oreos than a glass of milk? Learn more: Science Bob 3.

Use geoboards to map constellations Geoboards are such a cool classroom tool , and you can use them for so many things—like making constellations. All Posts. Leave a reply Cancel reply You must be logged in to post a comment. Yes, please send me updates from WeAreTeachers' partners. I can opt-out at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the email. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. This means that every time you see a spacecraft launch, you are watching chemistry at work.

The goal is usually to build a device that can protect an egg when dropped from a high location. This activity puts a twist on the classic project, motivated by real-world advances in space exploration. Can you build a reusable egg-drop lander that can survive repeated falls from the same height? This sounds like a really long time! Maybe not that long if you consider what distance the spacecraft had to travel to get from Earth to Neptune.

In this activity, you will make a model of the planets in the solar system and specifically model their distances to scale. Will it explain why the Voyager 2 took so long? Try it and see! Some parts of the rocket fall off and burn up in the atmosphere whereas the rest of the rocket keeps going. Why does this happen? Try this activity to find out and build your own two-stage rocket using balloons! Do you wish you could figure out a way to get these tasks done faster?

Figure out how as you take on the role of a production engineer in this fun activity!