Space travel has captured imaginations for generations. Combine creativity and problem solving to construct a 3-D spaceship. Plan a voyage that’s out of this world!

• 1.

  Could life exist on planets other than Earth? In other solar systems? What would it be like to travel to these planets and search for life? What would your spaceship need to take you into space and deliver you safely back home again? Work in small groups to design a ship for space travel.

• 2.

  Carefully plan each aspect of your trip into outer space. Design your spaceship to meet all the needs for your trip. Do you need a rocket booster for take-off, landing gear for smooth landings, an extra room for any guests you pick up during your travel? Be creative when deciding on the functions for and decoration of your ship.

• 3.

  Decorate several Crayola Neon Color Explosion® Papers using Neon Color Explosion Markers. Use them to build your 3-D spaceship. Select different marker tips for various effects. Decorate both sides of the paper.

• 4.

  Add dimension to make your structure look realistic. For example, cut thin strips and wrap them around a marker barrel to make curls. Make cuts along the edges and fold up fringe so color on the back side shows. Use chenille stems to connect parts or make antennae. Attach foam pieces for details and decoration. Glue and tape your spaceship together. Air-dry before handling.

• 5.

  With your group, prepare an oral presentation explaining your travel plans, design criteria, and spaceship features.

Standards

• LA: Read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grade level text complexity band independently and proficiently.
• LA: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
• LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
• LA: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.
• LA: Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.
• MATH: Solve problems involving measurement and estimation of intervals of time, liquid volumes, and masses of objects.
• SCI: Obtain and communicate information about the sizes of stars, including the sun, and their distances from Earth to explain their apparent brightness.
• VA: Use different media, techniques, and processes to communicate ideas, experiences, and stories.
• VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.

Adaptations

• Possible classroom resources include: If You Decide To Go To The Moon by Faith McNulty; What's Out There?: A Book about Space by Lynn Wilson; National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Space by Catherine D. Hughes
• Working in small groups, students design a series of spaceships that are meant to travel together. Students describe the specialty of each spaceship and its unique function within the designed fleet. Students may also want to assign jobs for each other and determine which ships they would be using to work.
• Students collaborate to compose stories about a trip through outer space. What was the most interesting part of the trip and why? What was the most difficult part of the trip? What problems arose while traveling in space? How did the crew resolve those problems? Were any other civilizations encountered while traveling in outer space? If so, how were they like humans? How were they different?