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Space Travel Stories

What would it be like to travel in space? Students will learn about space exploration and then write and illustrate an imaginary space adventure.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

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  • Index Cards

Steps

  • Step 1

    Have students learn about past, present, and future missions to explore outer space. Questions they might explore include: When did space travel begin? Who was the first person to journey into space? What mission successfully put people on the moon and in what year? How do space stations differ from other space journeys? What is a space probe? How does a space shuttle differ from a spaceship? Who was the first American woman in space? What future space exploration missions are planned?

  • Step 2

    Ask students to write a brief story imagining a themselves journeying in space. What sights might they see? What if they encounter life on other planets? Have them illustrate themselves in a spaceship or on an imaginary space journey. They might want to draw a picture of their family displayed in the spacecraft. This demonstrates how space travelers can look out at the wonders around them and at the same time enjoy reflecting on their family back home.

  • Step 3

    Have students present their art and stories to the class and discuss what they would most like to explore on their imaginary journey through outer space.

Standards

SS: Time, Continuity, and Change: Read, reconstruct, and interpret the past. Imagine the future. Place oneself in various times and spaces and reflect on change. 

SS: Science, Technology, and Society: Identify how technologies such as communication and transportation have evolved and how people have employed advances in technology to modify daily lives including health and economics. Explore historical examples and imagine future technologies. 

Adaptations

Have students learn about the "forgotten women" who helped advance space exploration. Several Black women worked at the all-Black West Area Computing section of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory at NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics). Three of the women, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, were featured in the film "Hidden Figures." Other names include Miriam Mann, Christine Darden, Kathryn Peddrew, and Annie Easley.

Before humans could travel into space, much aeronautical research was done by Navy, Marine, and Air Force test pilots. Have students learn about some of these pilots, such as Chuck Yeager (the first person to break the sound barrier), Virgil "Gus" Grissom (a pilot and flight instructor who was selected to command the first Apollo manned mission), and Gordon Cooper (an aerospace engineer, test pilot, and Air Force pilot who piloted the longest and last Mercury space flight).