In an attempt to escape the Goddard Bubble, many of this summer's Lunar and Planetary Science Academy participants took part in an outreach program at the nearby Alexandria County Public Schools. Each summer, the school district puts on a summer science workshop for its teachers with the goal of furthering their understanding about certain areas of science with which they may not be familiar, this year their focus was on oceans and space science.
The topic could not have been better and so the ACPS Summer Science Academy directors were more thrilled to have a group of us come down to present for several hours. After a week of planning we developed what we thought would be a fun-filled morning that would further expose them to planetary science and geology, while at the same time providing them with different activities and materials that they could take back to their own classrooms and use to pass along new knowledge to their own elementary and middle school students.
Needless to say, the morning was a huge success and everyone involved thoroughly enjoyed a morning of preparing "basalt columns," exploring miniature volcanoes, and creating craters. What follows are the videos that we produced while preparing for the morning workshop with the hope that others would be able follow along and reproduce our work.
First, we investigated how water flows can carve out new geological features.
Second, we replicated basalt columns formed by cooling lava.
Finally, we simulated lunar and planetary environments by creating craters.
