DIY Toys Quest

Toys for Week 2

Toys for Week 3

Toys for Week 4

Games Quest – Session 6

Quest Map

Game Quest Questionnaire

Games for Week 2

Games for Week 3

Games for Week 4

Games for Week 5

Games for Week 6

Mini Quest Week 5 – click here

Mini Quest Week 6 – click here

  • Designed with the younger warriors in mind! It can be enjoyed by all!

Stars and Constellations

  • Space Words (Vocabulary)
  • Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
    • Do Stars really Twinkle – Experiment
      1. Here’s what you need:
        • A square of foil
        • Clear bowl with tap water
        • A pen or pencil
        • A flashlight
      2. Let’s get started!
        • Take your square of foil, and mark some stars on it with your pen
        • Take your foil and place it behind your clear bowl of water
        • Darken the room by turning off the lights
        • Turn on the flashlight from behind the foil
        • You will see how the light refracts and makes it look like the stars are twinkling!
      3. Watch this video for a demonstration
  • Do you remember the different constellations we have studied?
    • Take some chalk and rocks and create!
The Orion constellation – a hunter in Greek mythology
  • If you could create your own constellation, what would it look like? Write or draw about it.
  • Constellation Song based on
Blackout Poetry

Blackout Poetry is like a treasure hunt since you find hidden meanings and secret messages in unlikely places. It creates a beautiful “night sky” – with words as the twinkling stars of your poem.

  • Challenge: You will need
    • Old newspapers or magazines
    • Thin and thick black markers
    • Highlighters (optional)
  1. Select a newspaper or magazine
  2. Look at all of the words on the page
  3. Go back over the page, and with a think black marker draw a box around the words that you want in your poem.
  4. Color in (blackout) the rest of the words on the page with the thick black marker, leaving just the words you selected.
  5. Highlight all or some of the words, if you like to create a more colorful effect.
“I love the magic of childhood – a mad dash through having nothing to do.”

Sun

  • Questions for you to think about
  • Why do we need to study space?
  • What does the sun tell us?
  • How can the sun help if you get lost?
The sun casts shadows that move in a clockwise direction in the northern hemisphere

Challenge: Make a Shadow Stick to Determine Direction

  • A straight stick, branch or pole
  • An area where you can see shadows clearly
  • During the daytime when the sun is out
  • Rock or small stick
    • Put the stick or branch into the ground at a level spot where it will cast a shadow on the ground.
    • Mark the tip of the shadow by using a rock or a stick to draw a line or arrow in the ground
      • The first mark will be in the Western direction anywhere on the Earth
    • Wait for 15 minutes
    • Now make another mark at the shadow’s tip in the same way that you marked the shadow’s tip in its first location.
      • Notice that the shadow will move in a clockwise direction that corresponds to the sun’s trajectory across the sky (In the northern hemisphere).
    • Draw a line between the two marks to create an approximate east-west line.
      • The first mark corresponds to the western direction, and the second mark corresponds to the eastern direction.
Stand with the first mark (west) to your left and the second mark to your right. The other directions are easy: you are now facing north, east is to your right, and south is behind you. This fact is true everywhere on earth.

Gravity

Gravity Water Drop Experiment – click here

  • Did this work for you?
  • Can you explain why worked or didn’t work?
  • What does this have to do with Outer Space and more specifically the moon?

Why Doesn’t the Moon Fall to Earth? Exploring Orbits and Gravity – click here

  • Can you explain now why doesn’t the moon fall to Earth?
  • What is one thing that surprised you?
  • How could you create this experiment? What would all the things you would need?

Check out Spiders in space – Gravity Experiment!

Solar System

Questions to guide Explorations and experiments
  • What is the solar system?
  • What is a planet? What planets are in the solar system?
  • Why do the Earth and other planets revolve around (orbit) the Sun?
  • What else revolves around the Sun?
  • How big is the solar system? How big are all the planets?

Space Words – Vocabulary

Compare the Planets -Check this out!

Distance between Planets – astronomical units

Optional Challenge – Warriors draw/place the planets in our Solar System with chalk on the ground. Then, play a racing game, running to each planet, reinforcing the names, order, and relative distances between the planets.

  • Use the Distance between Planets link
  • Planet Images
  • 1 ruler
  • 60 ft of string/yarn
  • 1 marker
  • Chalk – if you want to draw them
  • Toilet paper tube or something sturdy to hold the measured string.
  • Scissors
  • Parental assistance

What to do: Take the string and wrap it around the ruler twice. Make a mark at that point. Keep a count each time you mark and wrap the string. You will need to do this 30 times. Wrap the string around the toilet paper roll as you are measuring it out to keep it from getting tangled. Using the distance sheet, measure out the planets. Now you’re ready to do the challenge!

Fun Facts about Planets, PlanetsforKids.org, Nineplanets.org

Solar System Scavenger Hunt

Solar System Secret Code

Game: Cut out the planets and put them in order as fast as you can. Can you do it in less than a minute?

Create: Make a model of the Solar System using playdough

Writing Challenge: Write about the challenges of living on another planet. describe what the landscape on this planet looks like. What would the weather be like there? How long is a day? How long is the year? What would they need to survive on this planet?

Or choose a favorite planet and create a travel poster extolling its virtues as a vacation spot.

Lego: Build Planet Earth (Video Link)

Earth’s Motion around the sun (Video Link)

Read about the first human flight to the moon

50 years of human space travel

http://www.planet-science.com/categories/over-11s/space/2011/04/50-years-of-human-space-travel.aspx

Make a soda straw rocket

Space Mazes

Comets

National Optical Astronomy Observatory: Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT)
This image of Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) was taken at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. in 2004. Credit: National Science Foundation

Quick Facts about comets

  • No two comets are alike.
  • They differ in size, shape, and what they’re made of.
  • Comet tails are a result of the solar wind.
  • Energy and particles from the sun push on the comet.
  • This force pushes dust and gas behind the comet.
  • The ion dust and gas have different weights, so they separate, making two specular tails.
  • Once scientists saw a third tail, which was a smaller tail forming just between the dust and gas tail.
  • They discovered it was made of salt.
  • Comet tails have been discovered to be so long that Voyager 2 passed through one that was thousands of miles away!

Make a comet on a stick

Life on Mars
  • how do scientists test theories?
  • what are some clues that show there might be life?

Extension