Free Lesson Plans for Teachers: Atlantis

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Alpha Stage

Atlantis
June 13, 2007

The USA Today is running an article entitled, "Astronauts' Work on
Solar Panels Continues Wednesday."

The article begins, "Astronauts will step outside the International
Space Station on Wednesday to put the final touches on a new solar-
panel system, needed to provide power for European and Japanese
laboratories being added over the next 12 months."

The article reports, "NASA officials will decide Wednesday when
damage to the heat shield of space shuttle Atlantis, now docked to the
station, will be fixed. Two crew members might make the repair on a
spacewalk Friday. If not, (astronauts) Forrester and Swanson will
tackle the job Sunday."

Read a Related Article!!

Discussion Starters for Younger Children

If the seat in a car gets dirty can somebody still drive it?
Why/why not? What if a window falls out? Why/why not?
What if the tire becomes flat? What does the word "can" mean?

Consider asking students to write five things that a car
needs to have working properly in order to drive safely.

If your students were going away for the entire summer and
could only bring five things with them, what would they
bring? Why?

Students could work in groups of two or three to
develop their own lists.

Ask your students what they think it means to take care of a
television set. Do they think it's more important to take care of
a television set or a DVD? Why?

Consider asking students to write simple sentences
explaining how to take care of either a television or a
DVD.

Ask your students to think of the hottest thing they can. What
would happen if somebody got too close to it? Ask your
students to think of the coldest thing that they can. What
would happen if somebody got too close to it?

Hot and cold are opposites. How many pairs of
opposites can your students think of?

Discussion Starters for Older Children

Vocabulary terms to discuss: Mirror-Image; Unscrolled;
Aerodynamic; and, Eroded.

Ask your students why they think that the outer-layer of the
Earth's atmosphere is so fiery?

Consider asking them to explain their answer using a
graphic.

Ask your students to consider a comment made by a reader:
"What bothers me is how ambiguous the article is about the
damage. Yes, Columbia had a 10-inch hole on the heat shield...
on the reinforced carbon-carbon tiles of the wing leading edge,
where you have massive heating, shock-shock interactions,
etc. The blanket in question is on the OMS pod, in an area that
had tiles completely ripped off on STS-1. A catastrophic failure
is highly unlikely from the blanket. The main reason the repair
is even being performed is to avoid structural repairs on the
ground which might cause STS-122 to slip in December." Do
your child(ren) understand the comment? What words should
they look up to develop a better understanding of it? Is the
comment correct? How could your child(ren) determine the
accuracy of this comment?

In groups of two or three, ask students to do what it
takes to determine the accuracy of this comment. Ask
them to maintain a list of activities that they complete as
they go about this process.

If your students could investigate one scientific question
without the interference of gravity what would they want to
know? How might they go about testing this? Why would
they want to do this investigation? Is there any way to do this
investigation on Earth? If so, how?

Consider asking students to respond to these questions
in a technical essay.

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