As students and educators return to class, NASA wants to help the next generation to learn more about the mission that will pave the way to land the first woman and first person of color on the moon.
NASA’s Artemis program will take another step this year with the uncrewed Artemis I mission, the first integrated launch of the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) mega-rocket to send the Orion spacecraft around the moon and back to Earth ahead of future flights with astronauts.
Educators can bring the Artemis mission into the classroom using NASA’s standards-aligned educator guides. The “Landing Humans on the Moon Educator Guide” offers four activities to help middle-school students learn about the moon and create a model of a human landing system for the lunar surface.
Other educator guides focus on key concepts of the Artemis missions, such as:
- Crew transportation with Orion
- Propulsion with SLS
- Habitation with Gateway, an outpost orbiting the moon
Three new Artemis-focused educator guides will be published in the fall:
- Hazards to Deep Space Astronauts
- Deep Space Communications
- The Artemis Camp Guide
NASA will offer a weekly issue of resources to engage students for four weeks, beginning before Artemis I launch through splashdown with the Artemis I Learning Pathway. Educators and families can register October 26 for the best STEM content on Artemis I to arrive in their inboxes.
For The Older Kids
High school and college students should check out NASA’s Artemis Student Challenges. These are engineering, and technological design challenges focusing on topics and technologies involved in human spaceflight:
First Nations Launch competition offers Tribal Colleges and Universities, in addition to American Indian Science and Engineering Society chapter students, the opportunity to demonstrate engineering and design skills through direct application in high-powered rocketry.
Lunabotics is an annual engineering challenge that will become a lunar construction competition. The focus will remain on training university students in systems engineering methods as they design, build, program, and operate lunar technologies. The challenge for 2022 is under development and will be released Wednesday, September 8.
NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) Innovative New Designs for Space (MINDS) is a multi-semester, undergraduate-level activity in which students’ skills, creativity, and innovation are challenged as they design and build technologies needed for NASA’s Artemis mission. All minority-serving institutions (MSIs) are eligible to have a faculty-led student team. Applications open September 8.
Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) encourages high school and college teams to design, build, and test, human-powered rovers capable of traversing challenging terrain and tools for the completion of various mission tasks. The HERC 2022 Handbook is available now. U.S. registration opens and international team proposals are due Thursday, September 9.
Student Launch challenges teams of students at the middle school, high school, and college levels to design and build high-powered rockets containing a scientific or engineering payload. Interested teams can view the 2021-22 Student Launch Handbook and request for proposals, which are due Monday, September 20.
The Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge provides undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to design a wide range of alternative rover locomotion modalities to enhance or replace traditional wheeled mobility systems that can expand our access to extreme terrain on the moon and, later, on Mars. Full competition details are available now. Notices of intent are due Friday, September 24, and proposals are due January 18, 2022.
Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students (SUITS) is a design challenge that engages undergraduate and graduate student teams to design and create spacesuit information displays with augmented reality environments—technologies that could be used on future spacewalks on the moon and Mars. The request for proposals is open and letters of intent are due Thursday, September 30.
Micro-g Neutral Buoyancy Experiment Design Teams (Micro-g-NeXT) challenges undergraduate student teams to design, build, and test a tool or device that addresses an authentic, current space exploration challenge. Testing is conducted in simulated microgravity at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. The 2022 challenge is now open with letters of intent due October 12 and proposals due October 28.
NASA’s Teams Engaging Affiliated Museums and Informal Institutions program is supporting several informal education organizations with Artemis lunar exploration content to promote STEM learning and help inspire the next generation of explorers, including populations that are historically underrepresented in STEM professions.
NASA is also teaming up with other organizations and companies to collaborate on educational resources ahead of the Artemis I launch. Partners include:
- Girl Scouts of America
- LEGO Education
- Noggin
- Discovery Education
- Frito-Lay
- Tynker
- Microsoft
- Peanuts Worldwide
