Space Walk

The USA Today is running an article entitled, "Astronauts Will Try to Mend Solar Wing." The article begins, "Two astronauts will conduct a hastily planned, risky and unprecedented spacewalk as early as Friday at the International Space Station to fix a torn solar panel, which if not repaired might have to be junked." It reports, "The $5.6 million panel generates roughly 15% of the station's electricity. Without it, the station would not have enough power to support all the rooms slated to be added to it in the coming year."

Read the Article!!

Discussion Starters for Younger Children

• What do your students think it means to be brave? What kinds of things might a brave person do? Do your students think it's important to be brave? Why/why not?
  
• Students might develop skits in which they demonstrate what it means to be brave.
  
• Ask students if they would like to go out to outer space one day? Why/why not? What do students think it would be like to be in space? What kinds of things do they think they would see?
  
• Invite students to walk around the room as if they were in outer space. Invite them to walk around the room as if they were in the middle of the ocean.
  
• Ask students how many things they can find around the classroom that run on electricity, that is need to be plugged in. Do students think that electricity is important? Why/why not? Can students think of anything that can make something move? What?
  
• The class could list as many things that need to be plugged in, as possible.
  
• Ask students what they think of when they hear the word "sun." Do students think that the sun could be called "strong"? Why/why not? How might the world be different if the sun did not exist? (Consider telling students to never look directly at the sun.)
  
• Ask students to draw a picture of the sun and Earth.
  

Discussion Starters for Older Students

• Vocabulary terms to discuss: Junked; Potential; Deployment; and, Debris.
  
• Ask students to imagine that they were in charge of the International Space Station. Would they ask astronaut Scott Parazynski to make the space walk in an attempt to fix it, given the potential dangers? Why/why not? What are the potential benefits of fixing the solar panel? What are the potential detriments? How should one weigh the benefits against the detriments?
  
• Consider asking students to respond to these questions in groups of two or three. The entire class might then put the emergency space walk on trial.
  
• Ask students to imagine that they were an astronaut living aboard the space station. What kinds of things might they do on a regular basis? What might they think about? How might they feel?
  
• Consider asking students to write a journal entry from the perspective of an astronaut aboard the space station.
  
• Sixty years ago the prospect of an international space station was pure science fiction. Today it is reality. Ask students to think of something that would be considered science fiction today that could actually exist in sixty years. Why do students think that this thing could exist? In what ways would this thing effect the world in which we live?
  
• Consider asking students to draw pictures of their imagined devices.