Exploring Origins offers educators an opportunity to incorporate interdisciplinary studies, including language arts and speech communication, into their curricula.
Additional activities are also available.
Goal The goal of Exploring Origins is to help students understand the cumulative nature of scientific knowledge and technological advancements and to understand the theoretical basis for the Genesis mission. Students will examine the current scientific theory on the origin of the solar system and will develop questions that could be investigated to further the scientific understanding. After researching the previous knowledge base and technology developments that were necessary for Genesis to become a reality, students will design a new mission to collect further evidence to contribute to the scientific understanding of the solar system origins. In addition to the cumulative nature of scientific knowledge, students will become acquainted with other aspects of the nature of science. These aspects include science as a collaborative effort, the revisionary nature of scientific theories, the need for evidence to support scientific ideas, the necessity of testable hypotheses, and the way that new scientific knowledge is built upon old ideas after the addition of new data.