In this article, The Why Files examines the possible finding of water ice on our Moon, and the implications for this discovery. The article discusses why scientists believe there is water on the Moon, how a neutron spectrometer picks up the unusual presence of hydrogen on the Moon which could indicate water, what scientists hope to use this water for, and where this water may have come from. A moon ... Full description.

This resource is part of the Science Education Gateway (SEGway) project, funded by NASA, which is a national consortium of scientists, museums, and educators working together to bring the latest science to students, teachers, and the general public. This activity introduces students to planetary research. Using some of the most famous and interesting images of the Solar System, students learn to focus ... Full description.

The New Millennium Observatory (NeMO) is a seafloor observatory off the coast of Oregon, which studies the relationships between submarine volcanic events and the chemistry and distribution of hydrothermal vents and the biologic communities that depend on them. The research activities at NeMO provide an extraordinary educational opportunity, both from the daily reports from expeditions at sea and ... Full description.

This online collaborative project is part of the Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) program, which has developed internet activities for the elementary, middle, and high school level student. Based on data collected by their household members and their classmates, students determine the average amount of water used by one person in a day. They compare this to the average ... Full description.

This activity explores the potential impact of climate variability and change on one of Earth's increasingly vulnerable resources, forests. Although the activity is designed to tap specific skills and knowledge through scientific inquiry, its broader intent is to stimulate thought about the long-term impacts of a warmer planet. The scenario invites students to examine higher level issues of climate ... Full description.

This module provides three activities that explore the potential impact of climate variability and change on Earth's most abundant resource, water. Although each activity is designed to tap specific skills and knowledge to yield scientific results, the broader intent is to stimulate thought about the long-term impacts of a warmer planet. Through participation in these activities, students will observe ... Full description.

This 2-3 week module, based on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Cassini mission to Saturn, uses the mission as a context for learning fundamental science/math concepts. It consists of six standards-based, constructivist lessons, enrichment activities, and supplemental material such as questions and answers, a glossary, and a chart of Cassini's position in the sky. Full description.

This on-line project is part of the Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) program, which has developed internet activities for the elementary, middle, and high school level student. Students measure the temperature, record the number of minutes of sunlight per day over a predetermined week, and determine their global coordinates. Each class then posts their data to this web ... Full description.

This lesson plan is part of the Center for Educational Resources (CERES), a series of web-based astronomy lessons created by a team of master teachers, university faculty, and NASA researchers. Students download NASA Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images of the Martian polar ice caps from different times to measure and compare the changing Martian and Earth poles. This lesson contains expected outcomes ... Full description.

This site is designed to engage students in grades 7-12 in activities that focus on collaboration and communication strategies. These activities will strengthen student understanding of and ability to use collaborative processes and communication practices to clarify, conceptualize, and make decisions. Students will compare the risks of varying courses of action that confront scientists and engineers. ... Full description.