This activity will help students to understand that ocean water is sampled for chemicals and organisms. The sampling device must gather enough water for conducting all the tests, the depth at which the sample was gathered must be accurately known, the temperature at time of collection must be known, and it must not allow contaminants to enter as it is being brought up on deck. Students will design ... Full description.

This activity can be used as a culmination to a module or unit on astronomy or space science. Working in small groups, students will select a site in space to visit that will be the most beneficial for exploration and they will be asked to justify their choice of destination. They are to plan their trip taking into account as many factors as possible including the length of time needed to reach their ... Full description.

In this lesson, students explore different aspects of solar energy by building a solar hot box and testing various colors and materials to find the maximum temperature that can be reached. They will review the basic needs for alternative energy sources, identify three materials and colors that will produce maximum heat, and solve a design problem for the hot box. Full description.

This article presents information about the radiation hazards facing astronauts who travel to Mars. It covers the types of radiation including the most dangerous, galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), the damage it does to the body, and methods of shielding against it. One can also listen to this story via streaming audio or a downloadable file. Full description.

In this activity students investigate the role of the Radio Plasma Imager (RPI) on the Image for Magnetopause-to-Auroral Global Exploration (IMAGE) satellite. They will discover that the RPI is capable of remotely sensing and determining the density, distance, and velocity of electrically charged clouds. The activity explores how radar works and how the data is collected and organized to form images. ... Full description.

In this activity, students will learn how a satellite communicates information to the earth. They will discover that satellites use a transmitter and reciever system to send information and that the information must be transmitted correctly, recieved, and understood for effective communication. They should also understand that satellites transmit information as a stream of numbers, and gain experience ... Full description.

This is the homepage of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Pacific Marine environmental Laboratory (NOAA/PMEL) North Pole web cams. The web cams operate during the Summer warmth and daylight (April - October) and are redeployed each Spring. The images from the cameras track the North Pole snow cover, weather conditions and the status of PMEL's North Pole instrumentation, which includes ... Full description.

Mars Exploration is a Windows to the Universe Exploratour and provides information and images about Mariner missions, Viking missions, Mars Observer, Mars Surveyor Program, Mars Pathfinder, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Polar Lander and Climate Orbiter, Mars 2001, and Mars 2003. Windows to the Universe is a user-friendly learning system pertaining to the Earth and Space sciences. The objective of this ... Full description.

This site contains most of the up-to-date information known about the planet Venus, including mean distance from Sun, length of year, rotation period, mean orbital velocity, inclination of axis, average temperature (day and night), and diameter. Many discoveries about Venus have been made using Earth-based radio telescopes, however the images of Venus in this exhibit were collected by the Magellan ... Full description.

Activities at this site include modeling pixels with graph paper, investigating parallax, and calculating the distance modulus of Cepheid variables. Background material includes a discussion about various telescopes and other remote sensing, and the difference between brightness and magnitude of stars. Students are instructed to add the words radio telescope, black hole, Milky Way Galaxy, light year, ... Full description.