Planets

Is there life on other planets? Are there other civilizations we can learn from? Are those reports about aliens and spaceships true? Could we live on another planet? Would it support life? What new information could we learn?

Congratulations! Your NASA team has the opportunity to launch new discoveries in space exploration. Additional funding is now available through Congress. Your team's job is to create a space mission to gather information about a planet.

Your task will be to thoroughly research an assigned planet and to make plans for a space mission to conduct new research. Your team will present your information and ideas to the NASA Board of Directors, in hopes of receiving the available funds. Remember, your team will be competing against other top space experts. In addition to presenting to the Board of Directors, the team must write their research and ideas in a brief summary and fulfill the team responsibilities. Good Luck!

Your NASA supervisor will assign all participating teams with one of the eight planets. Each team member will explore the web pages provided at the site, plus any information found in any non-Internet resources.

Research the geology, climate, atmosphere, size, mass, and terrain of the planet. Find its' distance from Earth and any moons it may have.

Study past space missions to the planet (if any). What have previous missions studied about this planet? Were they successful? What went wrong? What went right?

Propose a research question on new information your team would like to learn about your planet. What tests will need to be performed? What measurements will need to be taken? What new and valuable information would be learned if there was a successful mission?

Design a probe or other data-gathering tool for your mission. Your probe will need to be developed to perform the tasks needed to answer your question. What information will it gather? What will it do? How will it move? Will it land on the surface or will it orbit the planet? Construct a 3-D model, poster, or diagram of your probe or tool.

Plan your space mission to conduct your research. Will your team go or will you only send your probe? How will you get to the planet? How long will it take? Days, years? Create a flight plan. Determine how you will be getting your probe to the assigned planet and how you will retrieve the information. What alternative plans do you have for your mission if your original plan does not work?

Plan your presentation. You may present the information in any way you choose. You may do a Power Point presenation, use posters, drawings, diagrams, or any combination. Be comfortable with the media form you plan to use. Be sure you can justify your reasons for your planet being chosen. Remember your goal is to sell your mission to the NASA Board of Directors.

After completion of this project, you will be knowlegable about a planet. Be able to propose a realistic question for research, and present a persuasive presentation to a group. Now that you've had a glimpse of our solar system, there are many other parts of the solar system to be explored. Maybe you can find other life forms out there and find a new friend! Here are some additional sites to help you along your way through the stars.

	Mastery	Accomplished	Unacceptable	Score
Originality of Mission 15 points	Very creative.	Somewhat creative.	Little effort shown.
Reality of Mission 15 points	Believable.	Fairly believable	The Sci-Fi channel won't even accept it.
Weekly Status Report 10 points	Always turned in on time.	Turned in most of the time.	Few turned in.
Presentation 30 points	3-D Model, diagram or drawing of proposed probe. Shows what probe will do. Effectively presented. Uses loud clear voice. Maintains eye contact. Seldom returns to notes. 15 minutes in length	Only a description of proposed probe. Ideas not clear. Voice is low. Occasionally makes eye contact. Reads most of presentation. +/- 2 minutes	No probe presented. Poorly presented. Class members cannot hear presentation. No eye contact is made. All of presentation is read. _{+/- 4 minutes}
Written paper 30 points	1" margins, double-spaced New Times Roman or Arial 12pt. font 3 pages in length	+/- 1/2 page	+/- 1 page
Scores	100-85 points	84-74 points	73-0 points

This webquest covers science, reading, art, history, math, and the language arts.

Please feel free to E-mail the authors with questions and comments. We are anxious to hear from you!