NASA: Creating a Space Exploration Infrastructure: Transportation

The moon is humanity's stepping stone into the solar system. Some of the objectives of this unit of standards-based 5E (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate/Extend, Evaluate) lessons are: To explain that to live on the moon and destinations beyond, we must identify resources that will support human life and enable the creation of a new space exploration infrastructure. To identify and describe examples of how technology affects humans. To explain that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only changed from one form into another. To explain that properties of systems that depend on volume, such as capacity and weight, change out of proportion to properties that depend on area, such as strength or surface processes. At the conclusion of the unit, students design and build a model depicting one of the lunar mission components; write an explanation of how the component contributes to the overall mission goal; and present their design to their classmates.