3 2 1 Lift-Off! Building your own paper rocket PW2, PW4, PW7

In this set of 3 activities students will design and build their own paper rockets and launch them. They will learn what it takes in order for a rocket to be stable and they will calculate the rocket’s trajectory and velocity.  They will learn about the velocity required to leave Earth in a rocket and uncover why the Moon has the potential to be a stepping stone for further space exploration. Lastly, they will calculate the acceleration of their rocket at launch and put this into a context of the G-force experienced by astronauts during launch.

This set of activities supports the Junior Cycle Specification Learning Outcomes PW2, 4 & 7

This set of activities supports ESA’s Mooncamp Challenge competition

Build Your Mars Exploration Rover – Building and programming a LEGO rover to collect science data NoS 6, PW4

Students will design and program a LEGO built rover.  Basic instructions are first programmed with the LEGO brick. Then, to remotely control the LEGO-built rover,  students will program it with the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 software.  The objective is to conduct a space experiment using a scientific approach and collect data. Measurements will be analysed and modelled so that  they can be compared with the student’s hypothesis.

This activity supports Junior Cycle Science Learning Outcomes NoS6, PW4

Whoosh Bottle – Applying Newton’s laws to rockets PW2NoS 5

Space and Major Disasters NoS9, PW 4

As part of science and technology, this supplement is a teaching aid for the study of the manifestations of the Earth’s activity.  It is designed to enable
pupils to think about the attitude to adopt in the event of a major risk, earthquake or volcanic eruption. The subject may be tackled in connection with current events, be based on the use of documents (photographs, magazines, audiovisual and multimedia documents) or be taught in the framework of activities involving initiation to geography.

This activity supports Junior Cycle Science Learning Outcomes NoS9 and PW4

Plants on Mars – Build an automatic plant watering system

Students will explore technology used in space through the Arduino tool.  They will build an automatic watering system that measures soil humidity and waters a plant accordingly.
The basics of programming in C++ will be introduced using the Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE) software.

This activity supports Junior Cycle Science Learning Outcomes NoS8, PW5

Barycentric Balls – Orbits and the centre of mass E& 1,Pw3 

Cooking a Comet – Ingredients for Life E&S1, PW6

Power from Water – How to produce oxygen and hydrogen on the Moon

Extracting Water from Lunar Soil

In this set of activities, students will plan, design, and build a landing module to secure the survival of the crew (in the form of an egg-naut) landing on the Moon. Students will calculate the velocity and acceleration during the fall and use Newton’s Second Law of Motion to study the forces on the Earth and Moon.

Download: Teacher’s guide and student worksheets

More info

Gives details of the relationship between force and the extension of a spring. Possibly more suitable for Leaving Cert students (HS).

Mechanical Properties

In this set of activities, students will learn about two concepts that influence solar panel design for space missions: the inverse square law and the angle of incidence. Students will perform two simple investigations using a photovoltaic cell (solar cell) and a light source.

Download: Teacher’s guide and student worksheets

More information

General Information on Solar and Lunar Eclipses

Solar and Lunar Eclipses

Starting from the defintion of what Convection is, the page gives examples of everyday situations where convection is important that the students may be familiar with. Convection is retermed thermal convection and some criteria for convection to be observed in a substance are stipulated such as presence of gravity, presence of a fluid that can flow, effects of varying density.

Convection Cooling

The 2nd page contains details relating to forced convection and Newton’s law cooling. This material may be advanced for most LS students, but could be introduced to more advanced students at LS.

Forced & Natural Convection

On this web page, details of conduction are given in both solids (non-metallic) and in liquids. There is a good description of the workings of a wet suit and exactly how it kepps a person warm in the water. Also on the page there is an animation showing the effects of convection in a liquid containing a number of spherical objects. The 2nd page gives details of conduction in gases and metallic solids.

Liquids and non-metallic solids:
How Conduction works

Gases and metallic solids:
How conduction works with gases and metallic solids

This page gives an overview of heat transfer and where heat transfer is important i.e. cooking food in ovens, cooling food in freezers, heat sinks in computers that prevent processors from overheating.

Heat Transfer Overview

This page gives a brief introduction to phase changes. Phase changes in terms of atoms and molecules rearranging. There is also a graph showing the cooling of a pure substance such as water with time. As the substance cools, there is a period where the temperature does not change (demonstration of latent heat).

Change of State and Latent Heat

There are some examples experiments also given where latent heat may be studied.