They Drink What? Using Space Activities in the Classroom

Space exploration presents a variety of opportunities to introduce STEM concepts to students as well as provide team-building.  We will use curiosity about water recycling on the International Space Station to introduce a water filtration/purification engineering activity, consider applications in daily lives, and investigate third-world water issues. These lessons can be used in high school science classes but are also easily modified for all grade levels and provide connections to social sciences, environmental science, and language arts to make a great cross-curricular project. In addition, we will consider the extreme heat of re-entry that spacecraft experience and using knowledge of conductors and insulators we will design and construct an ablative heat shield which will be tested by cooking an egg.

Presenter:  Pam Kraus, SHESC Salina

Credit:  Hours (6), PD Points (6), College Credit (.5)