Ed Tech Ideas

This week I’m highlighting three great sites about space and our solar system.

Solar System Scope

Solar System Scope is an amazing site that allows you to zoom around our solar system and view the planets and the Sun in amazing detail. To see the orbits in action, you can click play at the bottom of the screen and watch the rotation and revolutions of the planets as they make their journeys around the Sun.  With Solar System Scope, students really get a feel of the size of the solar system and how long it takes the outer planets to make their orbits. There are also controls that allow you to switch from heliocentric, to geocentric, and panoramic views. You can also toggle on and off the stars and constellations.

50 Years of NASA

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, NASA launched a nice interactive sitethat showcases all of the developments that have occurred over the last 5 decades in space travel and exploration. There are tons of places to explore to learn all about the space agency, its missions, details of specific rockets, and information about astronauts and leaders in the industry. My favorite part of the site is when you use the decade slider at the bottom of the page, there are different audio devices of the time that play top hits from that era. Man the 80s rocked! Thanks to @ktenkely and her great blog for the find!

Google Sky / Moon / Mars

Google has teamed up with astronomers from some of the largest observatories in the world to create Google Sky. This is a great tool to learn about constellations, planets, and solar systems. Just as in Google Maps, you can easily pan around and zoom in, and you have the ability to view the sky in infrared, microwave, or historical. Make sure to click on Moon and Marsto see some stellar (you knew that was coming) views of these far off places.

Happy exploring!