Pretty soon, we had parents pushing their own children aside to look through the telescopes. The beauty of space exploration in education is that it inspires awe and wonder and enthusiasm, and it has deep connections to every curriculum area. Many of our favorite math lessons, for example, came from Mission Mathematics , a publication from the National Council of Teachers of Math. It's full of wonderful aerospace activities that helped my kids learn their math, through rich, mathematical explorations. But the world isn't just Earth.
Earth is one very small part of the world.
Our world is the universe. And so, for example, one year when I was teaching second grade, an English lesson on telephone etiquette triggered some questions from my students about how telephones work, which led us to learn how we communicate via satellite systems. That simple English lesson evolved into a project in which the kids designed and built their own models of communication satellites for Earth and other planets. And tell them to keep at it because I'll be looking to pick a lot of brains when I get back to the classroom. Inc. All Rights Reserved.