ASTROBIOLOGY

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ASTROBIOLOGY
LIFE ON EARTH AND OTHER PLANETS?
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Why does the only life we know about exit only on
Earth?
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Create a 10 Week After-School Program

• TOPICS
• Understanding The Solar System
• Understanding Micro-organisms
• What is a breathable atmosphere?
• What is a habitable planet like?
• How does the sun factor into all of this?

• ACTIVITIES
• Icebreakers
• Puzzlemakers
• Videos
• Computer research
• Arts Crafts (creating models)
• Interactive group games
• Experiments
• Field Trip
• Final Project

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Focus Questions

• What concept (s) are you trying to help students
  understand more fully?
• What activity will you use to help teach those
  concepts?
• How will you know that students have moved
  forward in their understanding?

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Understanding The Solar System

• Activities
• Solar System Puzzlemaker-IceBreaker
• Skills Exercises The Famous 10, Drawing
  Coloring the Planets, Solar System Sleuthing
  (Earth Space Science Book)
• Astro Match (Astronomy Adventures)
• Create a Model-Group

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Understanding Micro-organisms

• Activities
• Video
• Yeast Observation
• Bread Mold
• Technology Research on Micro-organisms
• Creature Feature Game
• PuzzleMaker

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What makes life possible on a planet?

• Activities
• Word Puzzle (Sun, heat, energy, atmosphere,
  light, water, time, etc.)
• Brainstorm with students elements necessary for
  life (summarized to the left) record on chart
  paper
• Internet research activity in 3 groups
• Students choose one Moon, Jupiter, or Venus
• Students spend 30 minutes on the Internet
  researching these bodies in our Solar System
• Students make a poster and present to the class
  what aspects of their chosen place would be
• Possibly good for life to occur
• Make life impossible
• Challenge Would be a good/bad place to colonize
  and why!

• Size
• Large enough to trap and sustain an atmosphere
• Atmosphere
• Thick enough to trap heat from the Sun, but not
  too thick!
• Distance from the Sun
• Not too close, not too far-- the energy from the
  Sun is what we know allowed life on earth to form
  from early chemical compounds (the primordial
  soup!)

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Life can be unexpectedly strange!

• Activities
• Word Puzzle word search with names of
  extremophiles (see below.
• Brainstorm and discuss with students what are the
  things they think make life possible on Earth
  (this may be a review for them)
• Record students responses on chart paper and
  keep posted
• Student responses may be water, air, warmth,
  clean environment, things to eat, etc.
• Give students the assignment of finding
  exceptions to these rules (extremophiles!) on
  http//www.astrobiology.com/extreme.html
• Students put together a presentation
  (individually or in pairs) on their favorite
  extremophile from their research (no two groups
  can pick the same one).
• Students may pick thermophile (hot-loving),
  psychrophiles (cold-loving), acidophiles
  (acid-loving), barophiles (pressure-loving),
  xerophiles (dry-loving), halophiles
  (salt-loving), or anaerobes (oxygen-hating).

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Bringing it all together

• Follow-up discussion
• Life as we know it needs certain things to
  survive
• But our understanding of life is changing all the
  time, for example with the discovery of many
  kinds of extremophiles
• The search for life on other planets is a
  complicated matter!
• Now, its their turn

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Making an Earth-like Planet

• Activity and Final Presentation
• Review Word Puzzle crossword puzzle with all
  relevant vocabulary to this point (students can
  do individually or in pairs)
• Students work in groups to use the information
  they have learned in the program so far to create
  their own planet.
• Students should discuss with their group the
  features of their planet, and present to everyone
  what it will be like, and why they chose these
  features
• Students will create a 3-D model and an
  informational poster of their planet. Students
  will name, display and present their planets to
  the whole group. Planets will stay on permanent
  display.
• Students descriptions of their planets must be
  based on the science they learned in their
  research during this program.
• Any forms of life on their planets must be
  reasonably sustained by the planets environment.

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Assessment Rubric
Planet Maker Project
Rubric taken and modified from the TERC
Astrobiology Curriculum www.electrickiva.com/astro
biology/ chapters/TeacherGuide/Chapter2002-TG.doc