In this Little Inventors lesson plan, students will learn about life in space then draw their invention ideas to make an astronaut’s life easier or more fun.
The download contains:
- Life of an astronaut presentation
- CSA files presentations
- Little Inventors drawing sheets
- Diary of an astronaut activity sheet
- Space station mind mapping activity sheet
Learning objectives
- Understand that inventions are all around us, that invention is a way to create solutions to problems or challenges
- Learn about microgravity and the challenges faced by astronauts living in space, their training and about space travel
- Identify potential problems/areas where an invention could be useful
- Make hypotheses and evaluate their invention idea
Sample inventions lesson plan activity
Give children the Diary of an Astronaut activity sheet. Ask them to imagine they are an astronaut in the International Space Station, and to describe a typical day, thinking about all the things they have learned about living in space.
They can start by drawing their face in the top to show their mood on this particular day (happy, sad, bored, excited, etc).
They can describe what they can imagine seeing from the ISS, for example, features on Earth, which could be linked to real life events (for example weather-related events or a specific geographical element like mountains or the Great Wall of China).
Ask them to focus on one particular thing they have found tricky as part of their day in space and encourage them to add details to describe what the challenge is.
Identifying a specific challenge is one way to help them come up with an invention idea to solve.
Little Inventors is a creative education organisation that inspires imagination by taking children’s amazing ideas seriously. Browse more resources for World Space Week.
