Resources
Annotated Bibliography
NASA. NASA. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://www.nasa.gov/. This site is a treasure trove of resources. There are multiple galleries of open source images, videos, and gifs to enhance instructional presentations, download for use in interactive notebooks, and more. The NASA Audiences tab at the top is of particular use, allowing educators to search by grade level range to find lesson plans, STEM activities, coloring pages, puzzles, videos, and interactive games. This is one to bookmark and keep.
“Exoplanet Travel Bureau.” NASA. NASA, July 5, 2022. https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/exoplanet-travel-bureau/?cid=0%2Ctravel_bureau. This is an excellent source of information on exoplanets, and is of particular note for its artistic emphasis. The links look like old movie posters, and each will provide you with information about the artist’s process of using hard scientific data to create their visuals. This is a great resource for teachers and students alike.
“Home – NASA Solar System Exploration.” NASA. NASA, July 13, 2022. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/. This is a wonderful source if you are looking to keep your focus in our stellar backyard.
Frank, Adam. Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2019, 144, 137-8. This book is an engaging narrative history of exoplanetary science and how that history should influence our understanding of our place in the universe and here on Earth. If you are looking to scale this unit up for older students, this book can easily be broken into chapters or smaller excerpts.
Fraknoi, Andrew, Sidney Wolff, and David Morrison. “Astronomy.” OpenStax: Free textbooks online with no catch, 2016. https://openstax.org/details/books/astronomy. OpenStax is a superb resource. Textbooks for all subject areas are available for free. The Astronomy text provides detailed but highly accessible background knowledge for the teacher who did not necessarily specialize in astrophysics. The Biology 2e text was also utilized in the writing of this unit.
Taylor, Marianne. The Story of Life in 10 1/2 Species. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2020, 48. The premise of this book, taken from the cover image, is “If an alien visitor were to collect ten souvenir life forms to represent life on Earth, which would they be?” Though this is a book primarily about taxonomy, it is packed with wonderful images, diagrams, and flowcharts that could be useful in classroom research and instruction. If you are seeking to scale this unit up for higher grade levels, this is a very good place to start.
Hand, Kevin. Alien Oceans: The Search for Life in the Depths of Space. S.l.: Princeton University Press, 2021, 10, 96-101. Particularly good if you want to keep the search for water and life within our solar system. This book draws excellent parallels between the extremophiles we find here on Earth around deep-sea vents and the types of life we could potentially find elsewhere in the solar system. It’s a very accessible read and a good potential source for excerpts if you want to scale the unit up for older students.
Materials for Classroom Use
The materials listed in this section are not intended to be comprehensive. Teachers are encouraged to expand on these suggestions.
Books
- These books are intended for use with the Language Arts activities.
- Even Aliens Need Snacks by Matthew McElligott
- Aliens Love Astronauts by Melinda Kinsman
- Babaroo the Alien and the Magic of Healthy Food by Kate Melton
- Eeek! The Runaway Alien by Karen Inglis
- Alien Next Door by Joey Spiotto
- Baloney (Henry P.) by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith
- Aliens Love Underpants by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort
- Your Alien by Tammy Sauer
- Wuffles by David Wiesner—this is a wordless book and an excellent resource for differentiating instruction for students who struggle with the creative writing activity. You may give them several pages to work with and ask them to just fill in dialogue for the aliens, then from there guide them to think about why those characters would use those words and what that tells the reader about them.
- The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle, The Draco Tavern by Larry Niven—both books would be great if you are scaling this unit up for older students. Niven’s descriptions of his aliens in this collection of short stories are particularly useful.
- These books may be used with the Science activities.
- Is There Life in Outer Space? by Franklyn M. Branley
- Alien Worlds: Your Guide to Extraterrestrial Life by David A. Aguilar
- What Are Food Chains and Webs, How do Animals Adapt—both by Bobbie Kalman and Niki Walker
Research Websites
- https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/menu/earth/
- https://www.ducksters.com/science/ecosystems/world_biomes.php
- https://www.ecosystemforkids.com/
- https://study.com/academy/lesson/ecosystems-lesson-for-kids-definition-facts.html
- https://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/jams/science/index.htm
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