Rockets
Photo of an aircraft model setup for testing inside of an 8-ft x 6-ft supersonic wind tunnel.
Photo courtesy of NASA Glenn Research Center/Quentin Schwinn.
- Grades:
- K-2
Students build and launch rockets to study forces and motion, Newton's Laws, mass, acceleration, change, momentum, kinetic and potential energies, push, pull, friction, and more.
The Rockets Educator Guide provides you and your students with opportunities to learn the history of rocketry, investigate rocket science and mathematics, and understand what rocket scientists do. The guide contains pictures of events and technologies that many of us grew up with—Sputnik, Apollo, and the space shuttle, to name a few—and information about the future of space transportation and why rockets are the only vehicles that can “go where no one has gone before.”
Included in the guide is a matrix with suggested grade levels for activities that are appropriate for a wide range of student abilities. Although grade levels are suggested, small modifications will enable more complex activities to be used successfully with other grade levels for observation, demonstration, or complete lessons.
Funded by the following grant(s)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
This publication was funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA Kennedy Space Center, and released into the Public Domain. Permission is not required for duplication.