Microscopic meteorites routinely reach Earth's surface. While challenging to find and identify, this activity provides techniques for searching for them in the local environment.

Learners will visit a sequence of stations to discover how the dark and light areas and craters we see on the Moon's face today record major events of its lifetime. While they may visit the stations in any order, the stations trace the Moon's... (View More) 4.5-billion-year history from "infancy" to the imagined future. The children tie together major events in the Moon's geologic history as a series of comic panels in their Marvel Moon comic books. At each station, the children identify the lunar features that were produced during that era on a Moon map. This activity is part of Explore! Marvel Moon, a series of activities developed specifically for use in libraries. (View Less)

This is an activity about the Moon's formation, changes over time, gravitational connection to Earth, or influence on our culture and urban legends. Learners share their learning by creating zines: small, self-published magazines inexpensively... (View More) duplicated on standard letter paper and folded into eight-page booklets. This is the concluding activity of Explore! Marvel Moon, a series of activities developed specifically for use in libraries. (View Less)

This is an activity about the history of the Solar System. Learners work in groups to determine the order of geologic events - such as the formation of the Moon and when the bright crater of Tycho formed - and arrange images depicting those events... (View More) in the correct order. The children are introduced to NASA lunar scientists, who are currently investigating the Moon's history, through comic-book style visualizations of their real-life work. Finally, the children share their own histories by drawing, comic-book style, a past connection with the Moon in their own lives. This activity is part of Explore! Marvel Moon, a series of activities developed specifically for use in libraries. (View Less)

Learners dynamically dynamically model the growth of asteroids from specks of matter. Similar to tag, the children run around, have fun, and burn off energy. Different from tag, there is science involved! The end of activity debriefing discusses... (View More) strengths and limits of the model. Note the setting for this activity should be large and open where students can run. (View Less)

Leonard Nimoy narrates this a video about NASA's Dawn mission to the asteroids Vesta and Ceres. Learners will follow the mission from paper to launch pad to asteroid belt and beyond. The video features the planning, instrumentation and technological... (View More) challenges of this unique mission. Note: This video was produced pre-launch in 2007. For the latest news and science go to the Mission website under Related & Supplemental Resources (right side of this page). (View Less)

This online activity introduces the importance of meteorites to the understanding of the origin of the Solar System. Learners will use a key to determine if samples are meteorites. Finding meteorites can be difficult because most meteorites look... (View More) like Earth rocks to the casual or untrained eye. (View Less)