Lost in Space - Mr. Broderick

Introduction

Mayday, Mayday!

We have just received news from some of our astronauts on Apollo 2014 that one of their rockets has stopped working. They are unable to make it back to planet Earth and must complete an emergency landing. They have landed on a nearby planet but there is one problem...they do not know which planet they have landed on.

We know they are on one of five planets. They are: Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, or Pluto.

Your mission is to discover which planet they are on, so we can send a rescue ship to get them.

Here is the last contact we had with them:

Mission Control,

We have crash landed on an unknown planet beyond the asteroid belt. When landing I noticed this planet had a lot of moons, and it had an icy surface with a rocky core. The atmosphere is made up mostly of the gas methane. I know Earth has sent at least one probe to this planet in the past, and I noticed some faint rings around the planet including one that looked broken. Please help as we are running out of…

And that is where we lost contact with them. We are running out of time. We need your help...and quick.

Task

You and your NASA team have 3 tasks to complete in order to rescue our lost astronaut and his crew.

Task #1

Figure out which planet they are on.

Use the links provided to research the 5 planets beyond the asteroid belt (make sure to record important information).
Using the clues outlined in the “last contact” and the news report figure out which planet they are on.

Task #2

Present your findings.

Using one of the presentation tools we learned in class this year (PowerPoint, Prezzi, etc.), as a group create a presentation that states your evidence (reasons) for choosing that planet.
Present your findings to the class.

Task #3

Provide information on the other 4 planets.

Each member of the group will select one of the other planets from the list of 5.
Write a short report about the planet you have chosen and present that information to the class***you can add these reports to your presentation in task #2 or choose another method for presenting***

Process

Steps:

Get into groups of 4.
Use the websites listed below to read about each of the possible planets our astronauts could be stranded on.
After researching the planets, read over the new report and message from the astronaut.
Use the clues to try to piece together which planet they are stranded on.
Write a one page summary of all of your findings (planet, reasons for that choice, the diameter of the planet, and the distance from the sun.
As a group, use a presentation tool to present your findings to the class.
Each team member will then select one of the other 4 planets and write a one page informational report about that planet.

Here are some possible sub-topics to look for in your research:

Number of moons
Rings?
Atmosphere
Surface
Diameter
Distance from the sun
How many missions to this planet?

Links

These are the only links that you need to research. All the information that you need to find for your presentations is on these websites.

Uranus

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system/uranus-article.html

http://www.windows2universe.org/uranus/uranus.html

Neptune

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system/neptune-article.html

http://www.windows2universe.org/neptune/neptune.html

Pluto

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/what-is-pluto-k4.html#.U9HBqfnYUyA

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Pluto

http://www.windows2universe.org/pluto/pluto.html

Jupiter

http://www.windows2universe.org/jupiter/jupiter.html

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system/jupiter-article.html

Saturn

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system/saturn-article.html

http://www.windows2universe.org/saturn/saturn.html

All Planets

http://nineplanets.org/

http://www.kidsastronomy.com/solar_system.htm

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/101-videos/solar-system-sci

Evaluation

You will be assigned a group mark by the following:

1 = Needs Improvement

2 = Marginal

3 = Good

4 = Excellent

You will be individually graded on your presentations using the rubric provided below.

Multimedia Project : Lost in Space

Teacher Name: Mr. Broderick

Student Name: ________________________________________

CATEGORY	4	3	2	1
Presentation	Well-rehearsed with smooth delivery that holds audience attention. Excellent use of technology.	Rehearsed with fairly smooth delivery that holds audience attention most of the time. Good use of technology.	Delivery not smooth, but able to maintain interest of the audience most of the time. Fair use of technology.	Delivery not smooth and audience attention often lost. Little to no use of technology.
Content	Covers topic in-depth with details and examples. Subject knowledge is excellent.	Includes essential knowledge about the topic. Subject knowledge appears to be good.	Includes essential information about the topic but there are 1-2 factual errors.	Content is minimal OR there are several factual errors.
Organization	Content is well organized using headings or bulleted lists to group related material.	Uses headings or bulleted lists to organize, but the overall organization of topics appears flawed.	Content is logically organized for the most part.	There was no clear or logical organizational structure, just lots of facts.
Oral Presentation	Interesting, well-rehearsed with smooth delivery that holds audience attention.	Relatively interesting, rehearsed with a fairly smooth delivery that usually holds audience attention.	Delivery not smooth, but able to hold audience attention most of the time.	Delivery not smooth and audience attention lost.
Attractiveness	Makes excellent use of font, color, graphics, effects, etc. to enhance the presentation.	Makes good use of font, color, graphics, effects, etc. to enhance to presentation.	Makes use of font, color, graphics, effects, etc. but occasionally these detract from the presentation content.	Use of font, color, graphics, effects etc. but these often distract from the presentaion content.

Date Created: Jul 24, 2014 11:09 pm (CDT) rubistar.4teachers.org

Conclusion

Dear Team,

Congratulations! With all of your help we were able to locate our colleague lost in space. We have launched a rescue rocket to bring them home safe. Not only that but you have all taught us a lot of information about a number of the planets in our universe. Thank you for your hard work and dedication! At ease soldiers!

Sincerely,

Mission Commander