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Spotlite Design Challenge:

Virtual Mission: Destination Moon

Developed in Collaboration with the Challenger Center

Register

Register your learner production teams to receive a Spotlite Design Challenge starter kit with certificates and badges.

For teams who have successfully completed Challenger Center’s Virtual Mission: Destination Moon, congratulations! To learn more about how to book a Destination Moon experience, please visit the Challenger Center Virtual Missions. The Destination Moon Spotlite Challenge is also open to ALL teams, whether or not you participated in Challenger Center’s Virtual Mission.

Identify the problem: Your task is to share what you learn to help others change what they think about one of two misconceptions. You will do this by producing a NASA Spotlite video that will engage students in doing activities that can help change their misconception.

Follow these steps to think and act like scientists as you dig through data and experiment to support a claim that confronts a misconception.

  1. Select the MISCONCEPTION you will investigate.
  2. Do your own RESEARCH by conducting investigations to gather data and collect evidence to refute or disprove that misconception.
    Demonstration and Experimenting Ideas
    • NASA Space Place - Launch a Rocket from a Spinning Planet (experiment)
      Visit Resource
    • NASA - Eyes on the Solar System (simulation)
      Visit Resource
    Science Information Links
    1. NASA Spaceflight.com - Why Those Sometimes Annoying Launch, Landing Weather Rules Exist
      Visit Resource
    2. NASA Space Place - How Do We Launch Things into Space?
      Visit Resource
    3. NASA - Falcon 9 Weather Criteria Fact Sheet
      Visit Resource
    Demonstration and Experimenting Ideas
    • NASA JPL - Make a Moon Phases Calendar and Calculator
      Visit Resource
    • NASA – Look at the Moon Journaling Project
      Visit Resource
    • Night Sky (or similar) free Astronomy app
    Science Information Links
    1. Space.com - Why Do We See the Moon in Daylight?
      Visit Resource
    2. The Conversation - Curious Kids: Why Can I Sometimes See the Moon in the Daytime?
      Visit Resource

Once you have completed your research, create a Spotlite video to share your findings and challenge others to gather their own evidence to confront the misconception.

  1. Review the Criteria for the Spotlite video.
  2. Create the Spotlite video.