Aliens

Teacher Resource Web Sites

Charter College of Education, World Builders

General Extraterrestrial Life Resources

http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/courses/builders/index.html 

A resource for teachers who want to teach their students how to build worlds, including the types of life forms or "aliens" that would inhabit them.

 

Check out this sub-site for specific activities related to aliens:
http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/courses/builders/lessons/less2/Les11/Vles11.html 

 

PBS: Aliens Have Landed
http://www.pbs.org/safarchive/4_class/44_guides/guide_802/4482_aliens.html 
This site has curriculum and activities that relate to Roswell, NM, famed to the site of an alien crash landing.

 

PBS: Mathline, Alien Encounter
http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/mathline/xyencounter/tg_part1_intro.shtm 
Activity that uses graphing and plotting points to solve an alien conspiracy, with student print out page. One of 4 related activities.

 

Is Anyone Out There: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/19980929tuesday.html 
Using Technology to Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
A lesson plan from the NY Times files for teachers. In this lesson students focus on the tremendous public interest in the potential of extraterrestrial life. Students read and discuss an article about the search for alien life. They then divide into small groups and discuss the issues and implications of this search. Finally, they write about the complex issues involved in this search and its implications in one of several suggested genres.

Kidnapped by UFOs 
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/activities/2306_aliens.html 
This plan features a lesson plan that asks students to recall what occurs when two people briefly disrupt class with an unanticipated interruption.

 

SETI Institute
http://www.seti-inst.edu
The mission of the SETI Institute is to explore, understand and explain the
origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe.  The website provides
institutional background information as well as educational materials.

Microbe Related sites

Alien Invasion
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1204/teaching/teaching2.htm 
This activity expands the idea of “alien” to life forms outside of a basic eco-system, and looks at environmental controls.

Mars Related Sites

 

Getting to Know Mars 
http://www.astrosociety.org/education/publications/tnl/09/09.html 
This site is an overview of Mars with suggested classroom activities.

Mars
http://www.nineplanets.org/mars.html 
This site features solid and clear background information on each of the planets in our solar system, including Mars.

[Also see related activity sites in the Kid Zone section of this Witte TeleVentures section.] 

©2003, Witte Museum, San Antonio, Texas