Preview · the opening missionRead this to the class:
A school robotics club in Nairobi has won the chance to design one experiment for a future space probe. The probe can go to any one world in the solar system, but the club has to say where, and why, using real data. Your team's job: read the data for every world, find out what it would be like to stand there, and choose a destination you can defend.
Teams of three, with three jobs that rotate: Reader (reads cards aloud), Calculator (does the sums), Recorder (writes the team's case).
Look inside the PDF
Sample pages, stamped “preview”. The download is the clean, full lesson.
In the full lesson PDF
9 printable pages
- Predict (5–10 min)
- Hunt (20 min)
- Reveal (10–15 min)
- Act (10 min)
- Background for the teacher
- Assessment
- Student sheet
- Worksheet: World data cards
- Worksheet: Label it
- Worksheet: Try it at home
On the student sheet
- My prediction
- Our two sorts
- Weight puzzle: 40 kg on Earth
- Why is Saturn's gravity less than Earth's?
- Which way is down on Mars?
- Our mission case
- World data cards
- Label it
- Try it at home
US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white. The student sheet is on its own page, ready to photocopy.
Free with an account (any 3 lessons), or US$19 for all 3 lessons in this unit.
What students show by the end
- Uses data
- Mass and weight
- Direction of gravity
From the lesson’s rubric, which scores each one as not yet, getting there or got it.
Questions teachers ask
How long does “What is each world like?” take?
50–60 min. Group size: teams of 3.
How much prep does it need?
5 minutes: print the Student sheet for everyone and one set of World data cards per team, cut apart.
What materials do I need?
None. No materials needed: just the printed sheets.
Which curriculum standards does it cover?
NGSS (US): MS-ESS1-3 and 5-PS2-1 (partly). It also matches England National Curriculum, Year 5; England National Curriculum, Key Stage 3 and Cambridge Primary and Lower Secondary Science (not endorsed by Cambridge).
What’s in the lesson PDF?
A teacher guide that walks you through predict, hunt, reveal, act, background for the teacher and assessment, then a student sheet (“My prediction”, “Our two sorts”, “Weight puzzle: 40 kg on Earth”, “Why is Saturn's gravity less than Earth's?”, “Which way is down on Mars?”, “Our mission case”, “World data cards”, “Label it” and “Try it at home”) on its own page, ready to photocopy. It’s US Letter and prints cleanly in black and white.
Can I try it for free?
Yes. A free account includes any 3 full lessons of your choice, and this can be one of them. After that, this unit is US$19 for all 3 lessons, yours to keep, or every lesson is US$199 a year.