Introduction:

You are an astronaut training for a trip to the planets. You must learn as much as you can about the planets before you set off on your journey.  You will choose just one of the planets.  You will use the Internet sites below to help gather your information.  When you and your fellow astronauts have completed this assignment, you will be ready to begin the physical training to prepare you for your journey.

Task:

Research everything you can find about your planet.  Write a report that your fellow astronauts can use to help prepare them to make their plans for the voyage to the planets. You will give your report to the astronaut team.

Procedure:

Below you will find tables that contain Internet sites for your report on a planet of your choice.  Most planets will have several sites.  Choose information you find from the sites, but remember in your final report, you must write the Internet site address for the information you use.  You will click on a site, scan the web page for information for your report, then take notes on what you think might be important.

Resources:

Mercury

                   Internet Address                                                                Description
 

http://www.tcsn.net/afiner/mercury.htm	Mercury from a Nine Planet web page for students.
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/solar_system_level1/mercury.html	Mercury from StarChild web page
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/mercury.html	Nine Planets - Mercury web page

Venus

                 Internet Address                                                                Description
 

http://www.tcsn.net/afiner/venus.htm	Venus from a Nine Planet web page for students
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/solar_system_level1/venus.html	StarChild web page of Venus
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/venus.html	Nine Planets - Venus web page

Earth

               Internet Address                                                                Description
 

http://www.tcsn.net/afiner/earth.htm	Earth from the Student Nine Planets web page
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/solar_system_level1/earth.html	StarChild web page of Earth
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/earth.html	Nine Planets - Earth web page

Mars

             Internet Address                                                                Description

http://www.tcsn.net/afiner/mars.htm	Nine Planets for students Mars web page
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/solar_system_level1/mars.html	NASA StarChild site for Mars
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/mars.html	Nine Planets - Mars web page

Jupiter

            Internet Address                                                                Description
 

http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/solar_system_level1/jupiter.html	NASA StarChild Site for Jupiter
http://www.tcsn.net/afiner/jupiter.htm	Nine Planets for Students - Jupiter
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/jupiter.html	Jupiter site from Nine Planets

Saturn

          Internet Address                                                                Description
 

http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/solar_system_level1/saturn.html	Saturn from StarChild (NASA)
http://www.tcsn.net/afiner/saturn.htm	Saturn from the Nine Planets for student site.
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/saturn.html	Nine Planets site for Saturn

Uranus

         Internet Address                                                                Description

http://www.tcsn.net/afiner/uranus.htm	Nine Planets site
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/solar_system_level1/uranus.html	StarChild from NASA (Uranus)
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/uranus.html	Uranus web page

Neptune

          Internet Address                                                                Description

http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/solar_system_level1/neptune.html	Neptune- StarChild site (NASA)
http://www.tcsn.net/afiner/neptune.htm	Student Nine Planet page- Neptune
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/neptune.html	The Nine Planets- Neptune

Pluto
          Internet Address                                                                Description

http://www.tcsn.net/afiner/pluto.htm	Pluto from student's Nine Planet site
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/solar_system_level1/pluto.html	StarChild Site-Pluto (NASA)
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/pluto.html	Pluto from the Seds site

Scroll down and type in your weight on Earth, then Click on your planet.  It will tell you how
much you would weigh on your planet.
 

http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/kids/solarsys/weight.html

Conclusion:

You are now an expert on your planet.  After giving a presentation to the class about your planet,
you will be ready for you trip into space.  Good Luck!!!

Evaluation:

Below you will find a rubric that will be used by you and your teacher to evaluate your project.
 
 

Item	1 Point	2 Points	3 Points
Effort	Student put little effort in to the report.	Student put good effort into the report.	Student put excellent effort into the report.
Quality of Information	Student used little information.	Student's information was good quality.	Student's information was excellent.
Structure (spelling, grammar, punctuation)	Report had many spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors.	Report had fewer than 6 errors.	Report had 4 or less errors
Writing (topic sentence and  detail sentences)	Report did not have a topic sentence or more than 2 detail sentences.	Report had a topic sentence, but two or less detail sentences.	Report had a good topic sentence and three or more topic sentences.