Astronomy

NASA Mission Research Activity

You will research a NASA mission including its purpose, major discoveries or results and future plans. You can work individually or with one other partner in the same class period. Equal effort must be shown in order to earn full points. You will research the a specific mission (only one person/pair in each period per mission) and prepare a brief summary of what you learned to share with your classmates. Missions whose details are common knowledge are not available: Apollo, Kepler, Hubble, New Horizons, the Mars rovers & science labs.

A good place to start is: http://www.nasa.gov/missions

You (and your partner) will share your summary that you wrote in class on the ___________________ mission. You have two minutes each (four minutes total if in pairs) to share the information you have collected about your mission in a concise, accurate and engaging manner. Your material does not have to be memorized but must be original. You will submit a copy of what you said before you present it in class electronically to your teacher (Submissions due by Sunday, 12/10, at 11:59 pm).

Copy of Rubric that will be used to assess your presentations:

□ Summary electronically submitted □ Summary is original work (not plagiarized without citation)

□ Two minutes each person □ Works cited included

Students discuss:

□ The purpose of the mission including location.

□ Major discoveries of the mission so far OR future plans and equipment used.

□ Mission partnerships (if applicable) or important people involved.

Students seem to:

□ understand the purpose of the mission including the data collected,

□ understand the importance of the mission to the advance of human understanding,

□ have researched the mission adequately sharing details of a well-researched summary.

Partners should share the same score*: _________ /30 points

(*Unless there is an obvious disparity in work effort and presentation)

Potential missions to choose are:

NASA Mission Research Activity: Celestial Object Research Activity: