We encourage you to celebrate World Space Week and the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing with these hands-on STEM activities. Each activity simulates a task, such as coding a lunar lander or designing a shock absorber system. These represent obstacles that NASA had to overcome to successfully land on the moon.

Five Fun Activities and Resources

  1. Lunar Lander Scratch Game

    In this coding activity, students use the block-based coding in Scratch 3 to build a lunar lander game with custom sprites and stages. Students have the option of controlling their lander with the arrow keys on their keyboard or with a Go Direct® Force and Acceleration sensor and the built-in Vernier extension.

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  2. Earth-Moon Activity

    Students complete this activity to help explore the distance between Earth and the moon and compare their sizes.

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  3. Touchdown

    In this activity, students design and build a system to absorb the impact of landing while investigating gravity and motion.

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  4. Robotic Arm Activity

    To complete this activity, students use the engineering process to design, build, and test a robotic arm to move items to simulate excavation in space.

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  5. Roving on the Moon

    In this activity, students use the engineering process to create their own rubber-band-powered rover. Using basic supplies such as cardboard, pencils, and rubber bands, they build rovers to travel on the surface of the moon.

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Learn more about World Space Week »