Mars Curiosity Virtual Field Trip

On December 12, we ate lunch in the classroom together and experienced our first live virtual field trip at NASA's headquarters in Washington D.C. through Discovery Education's live event called "i.am.STEAM, Journey to the Extreme." During the event, NASA scientists shared their latest discoveries of Mars and Mars Rover Curiosity, and we were able to enjoy our lunch while taking notes, taking pictures, and tweeting about our learning. 

To view the videos we experienced live, click HERE.

Check out some of the tweets we shared with our followers during the event, in ascending order (first ones we tweeted are last). 

Room 121 ‏@room12112 Dec

On the Curiosity the tire has Morse code -Isaac #iamsteam

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Room 121 ‏@room12112 Dec

Mars has Mars quakes it's not caused by tectonic plates it's caused by asteroids. ~ Madison

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Room 121 ‏@room12112 Dec

@lacrossescience I think so to, it is really interesting.~Delaney#iamsteam

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Room 121 ‏@room12112 Dec

I learned all the rocks on Mars are the same kind of rocks here &Mars is the color red because it has lots of iron in it. ~Delaney #iamsteam

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Room 121 ‏@room12112 Dec

We are live with Mars Curiosity VIrtual field trip and they are telling us info about Mars it is awesome:-) -Mariah #iamsteam

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Room 121 ‏@room12112 Dec

@lacrossescience Through live streaming on Discovery Education where NASA scientists are sharing about Mars Curiosity #iamsteam

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Room 121 ‏@room12112 Dec

#iamsteam We are still waching the video and it explained how Curiosity landed!!~Jaden

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Room 121 ‏@room12112 Dec

#iamsteam Mars is colored by rusted iron!

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Room 121 ‏@room12112 Dec

I learned that five to six thousand people worked on the rover and Mars had water but is dry now _Caitlyn #iamsteam

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Room 121 ‏@room12112 Dec

The new rover, Curiosity, is planned to be on Mars for 2 years! ~Lexi#iamsteam

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Room 121 ‏@room12112 Dec

Well what I learned is that theres a rover called IOpportunity. ~Austin#iamsteam

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Room 121 ‏@room12112 Dec

#iamsteam we are sitting in the class room and are watching a live video about Curiosity.~Bailey #iamsteam pic.twitter.com/z6eg1ulj

Oreo Phases of the Moon

To help us learn about the phases of the moon, we used Oreos to sculpt the different phases and then we put them in sequential order.

The following websites helped us in this activity; although, we used toothpicks instead of utensils for the sculpting part:

 http://www.leosciencelab.com/educators/lesson-plans/oreo_moon_phases.php

http://www.sciencebob.com/blog/?p=828

Angry Birds- SPACE!

Since we had so much fun using Angry Birds to review verbs (see our post: Angry Verbs), we decided to incorporate Angry Birds again to help us learn a little about the planets in our Solar System.

Our Solar System Model

Recently, we've been learning about our Solar System, so we made a a class model using the guidelines on pg. 2 (in the extension section) from this website to help us: http://meteorite.unm.edu/site_media/pdf/outdoorscale.pdf

Check out the video below to learn more about our experience, and stay tuned for our planetary virtual museums coming soon!