by Bethany Dixon

With a new year, it’s easy for teachers to feel like they’re on Mars, but with the landing of the Curiosity, we now have the opportunity to show students what it’s actually like to be there! How long can you spend on Mars? Whether it’s 60 seconds or 16 lessons, integrating the landing of the Curiosity rover into your curriculum can be more than just an interesting lesson in current STEM events. Organized by approximate time needed, here are the latest resources to deliver an out-of-this-world classroom experience, with a preview that spans bell work, an Emmy-award winning short video series, standards-based, ready-to-go lesson plans, and resources for using Mars for interdisciplinary community involvement: (more…)

Eldridge Moores is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Davis, where he has been a faculty member since 1966. His research has involved the tectonics of ophiolites in the Alpine-Himalayan and Western US Cordilleran mountain systems and has involved field work in about 30 countries.

For several decades, Moores has been working on raising general awareness of Earth Science. In particular, he has been working during the past decade to improve the status of Earth and Space Sciences instruction in California secondary schools. Moores holds that the field of Earth and Space Sciences has gone through two revolutions in the past fifty years. The first was the plate tectonic revolution, which lead to new insights into the nature of the Earth and natural processes active on and in it. The second was the planetary revolution, occasioned by exploration of neighboring planets and of their compositions and histories in comparison to that of the Earth. The products of these revolutions are exciting, integrate multiple science disciplines, and can an ideal way to get students interested in science. (more…)

by Robert C. Victor

We hope you enjoyed the annular or partial solar eclipse of May 20. Perhaps you’ll want to start planning to take in the next two total solar eclipses within the U.S.: On August 21, 2017 (seen as total within a narrow path from Oregon to South Carolina), and on April 8, 2024 (total from Texas to Maine).

Here are some fascinating events to close out the (traditional schedule) school year, and some very striking arrangements of planets, moon and stars to encourage your students to “keep looking up” during the summer months. (more…)

Teachers in Space, a nonprofit program that seeks to put large numbers of astronaut teachers into American classrooms, is undergoing major changes. Teachers in Space is now becoming “Citizens in Space.” The new name indicates a new emphasis on citizen science as well as citizen spaceflight. (more…)

by Robert Victor

These are great months for viewing bright planets in the early evening! Students will enjoy following brilliant Venus and Jupiter through their closest pairing on March 13, and viewing four planets simultaneously in late February and early March. During Feb. 22-Mar. 7, the moon forms attractive early evening groupings with four of the five bright planets and three of the five bright zodiacal stars. After returning to the early evening sky on Mar. 23, the moon sweeps past four bright planets during Mar. 25-Apr. 6. (more…)