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
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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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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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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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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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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.