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Home / See & Do / Challenger Center / Teacher Ready Room
Teacher Ready Room
Workshop Materials
Material to Help You Prepare
After you book a mission, you should receive mission preparation material. It will contain a teacher packet, activity book, and your confirmation letter. You can download the teacher packet here. Files are in PDF format and require Adobe Acrobat to open.
At HMNS:
, Regular or Advanced
, Moon or Mars, Regular or Advanced
If you do not receive preparation materials with a confirmation letter in the mail within 2 weeks of registration, call 713-639-4631.
More material is available . . .
Additional materials are available to teachers who have booked a Challenger program. Below are the curriculum books with the activity titles listed. If you would like a free copy of one or both of the books send an email to challenger@hmns.org with your name, name of school, mailing address, and the date you are registered for your Challenger program.
| Mars |
Moon |
| Navigating a Spacecraft |
Lunar craters |
| Spacesuit Design |
Moon Phases |
| Mars Geologic Mapping |
Basis Life Support System |
| Mission Meals |
Lunar Geology |
| Hydroponics |
Water on the Moon |
| Searching for Signs of Life |
Distance to the Moon |
Begin Your Training
A Challenger Center Mission is more than just a one-day field trip. The mission starts in your classroom and lasts long after the experience. We recommend that you incorporate the mission preparation material into your daily curriculum to take advantage of the potential of this unique experience. Some of the activities go beyond science, such as team applications and designing a mission patch. At a minimum, your students should know what team they are on, what their duties will be, and have the proper name badge on when they arrive at the Challenger Center. During the Challenger Mission we will work on many processing skills: communication, problem solving, teamwork, decision making, following instructions, etc. We do not focus on the concepts of science (such as phases of the moon, the solar system, rocketry, etc.) in the mission. This should be done in your classroom before and after the field trip. Many teams will touch on these concepts in the mission, but each team has a different set of tasks. Therefore only a few students will experience a concept. This is why doing “astronaut training” before a mission is important. It gives all students an opportunity to be involved in all of the different science concepts. In other words, all students can train for a job and learn about it, but only a few will do it during the mission.
Assigning Teams
The best way we have found to assign teams is to let the students experience some of the work for as many of the teams as possible and go over the “Team Descriptions” page in the teacher packet. Once they are familiar with all the teams, they can complete the “Team Application” page in the ission Prep book. This makes their job more career-oriented and helps you understand what teams they would like to do. Then use the Team Applications to fill in the “Crew Manifest” page. Remember that a major part of the program is teamwork so it is better to have all students working with a partner and not use some teams than to have people working alone with every team covered.
Here are some tips for making assignments to each team. Refer to the “Crew Manifest” page in the teacher packet. The Communications, Data, Navigation, and Life Support Teams are essential to the scenario of the mission. For small groups leave out teams starting from the bottom of the chart and move up. Please note: the Biology and Geology teams are only available at the HMNS site. If you have booked a larger group and have filled all team positions, call 713-636-4631 for information about the Press Team.
| Team Name |
Full Mission, number of students per team |
Mini Mission, number of students per team |
| Communications |
1 on Alpha & 1 on Beta for small groups, 2 each for large |
1 student for small groups, 2 for large
|
| Data |
1 on Alpha & 1 on Beta for small groups, 2 each for large |
1 student for small groups, 2 for large |
| Navigation |
2 on Alpha & 2 on Beta |
2 students |
| Life Support |
2 on Alpha & 2 on Beta |
2 students |
| Probe |
2 on Alpha & 2 on Beta |
2 students |
| Isolation |
1 to 3 on Alpha & 1 to 3 on Beta, must have matching numbers on each side. |
1 to 3 students |
| Remote |
0 to 3 on Alpha & 0 to 3 on Beta, must have matching numbers on each side. |
0 to 3 students |
Medical
|
0 to 2 on Alpha & 0 to 2 on Beta |
0 to 3 students |
| Biology (HMNS site only) |
0 to 2 on Alpha & 0 to 2 on Beta, (can be 3 for very large groups) |
0 to 2 students (can be 3 for very large groups) |
Geology (HMNS site only)
|
0 to 2 on Alpha & 0 to 2 on Beta (can be 3 for very large groups) |
0 to 2 students (can be 3 for very large groups) |
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