Third grade students like all of us are facinated by space.  Learning to work in a group to complete a project is an important part of our students' education.  This project will do several things.  It will help students learn a bit more about the four space objects, it will teach them that when one finds information it is used for a purpose, not just taking a test, and, hopefully, this will be fun for them.

• Find and use information about The Sun, the Earth, Mars, and the Moon.
• Work together in a group to complete a project.
• Create a project to present to the class.

• Poster paper for posters in a variety of colors
• Computer lab time (approximately two half-hour lab times to collect information.
• A data sheet for each students which can be printed by clicking on the desired data sheet and clicking on the print icon.  Please reproduce as many copied of each sheet as needed for your students
• Magic markers, crayons, or chalk for the posters

• Divide students into team of four.  Give each student in the team one of the four mission specialist jobs.
• Pass out the mission specialist data sheets.
• Gather students around a computer and read the Introduction, Task, Process, and demonstrate how to get to their web sites.
• Model finding information from one of the web sites.  Explain that complete sentences are not necessary that just bullet type notes will take less time to write and can be made into sentences later.
• Take students to the lab and help them access the activity.
• While in the lab, it is often helpful to put students together who are looking for the same information.  For example, all the Moon Mission Specialist could be sitting together.  This way they can help each other gather information.
• Once the data is gathered, students then get together in their teams and decide how they want to present their information to the class.  Some possibilities might be a group poster, a booklet about each of their space objects, a PowerPoint presentation, or a lesson on their four space objects to teach others about it.