What is the International Space Station? How long has it been up there? Who goes up there and for how long? What do astronauts do on the space station? These are intriguing, valid questions you can pose to your students, or perhaps your students have already posed them to you. The NASA space exploration program has a 50-plus year history dotted with some exciting stories, including, but certainly not limited to, Apollo 13. Perhaps it’s the number of “uneventful,” successfully completed missions that should captivate us as much as the creative and suspenseful story of Apollo 13.

The most recent mission performed by the space shuttle Endeavour was scheduled to conclude November 30, 2008. The mission is described as an “extreme home makeover” because the astronauts delivered a number of needed upgrades to the aging space station, which celebrated its 10th anniversary on November 20, 2008. According to a NYTimes.com story, “Endeavour delivered more than eight tons of equipment and supplies to the space station . . . including the water recycling gear, a new toilet, a new galley, a refrigerator and two astronaut sleep stations.” The water recycling gear is intended to provide the means for converting astronaut urine to drinking water. It will be tested for a period of three months before conclusions are made regarding its safety and effectiveness.

Endeavour is also bringing home Gregory E. Chamitoff, who has been living and working on the space station for six months. Doctors anticipate some adjustments will be needed as he re-acclimates himself to Earth’s gravity.

How to Turn This News Event into an Inquiry-Based, Standards-Related Science Lesson

One angle teachers could assume with this story is the urine conversion/water recycling idea. This concept connects with earth systems concepts of biogeochemical cycles, and physical science concepts of kinds of matter and changes in matter. Students can review the water cycle and consider how it manifests itself in the closed system of the space station. There are some obviously unique parameters that must be worked with or around. For example, not much evaporation goes on, nor is there much, if any, transpiration from plants. How do those restrictions impact water cycling? If you are feeling brave, you can explore the chemistry of urine. Perhaps it connects to a human body systems study, the excretory system.

The National Science Education Standards Science and Technology Content Standard B states:

• Scientific inquiry and technological design have similarities and differences. Scientists propose explanations for questions about the natural world, and engineers propose solutions relating to human problems, needs, and aspirations. Technological solutions are temporary; technologies exist within nature and so they cannot contravene physical or biological principles; technological solutions have side effects; and technologies cost, carry risks, and provide benefits.
• Many different people in different cultures have made and continue to make contributions to science and technology.
• Science and technology are reciprocal. Science helps drive technology, as it addresses questions that demand more sophisticated instruments and provides principles for better instrumentation and technique. Technology is essential to science, because it provides instruments and techniques that enable observations of objects and phenomena that are otherwise unobservable due to factors such as quantity, distance, location, size, and speed. Technology also provides tools for investigations, inquiry, and analysis.
• Perfectly designed solutions do not exist. All technological solutions have trade-offs, such as safety, cost, efficiency, and appearance. Engineers often build in back-up systems to provide safety. Risk is part of living in a highly technological world. Reducing risk often results in new technology.
• Technological designs have constraints. Some constraints are unavoidable, for example, properties of materials, or effects of weather and friction; other constraints limit choices in the design, for example, environmental protection, human safety, and aesthetics.
• Technological solutions have intended benefits and unintended consequences. Some consequences can be predicted, others cannot.

Help students understand that the International Space Station represents a technological innovation, built through understandings of scientific principles such as Newton’s laws of motion. The station, in turn, provides an environment for a wide range of additional scientific investigations and observations. See http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/index.html for an annotated list of investigations. The fact that the space station is “international” underscores the second bullet point above.

The last three bullets of the standard revolve around issues of pros and cons, risks and benefits, and articulating acceptable levels of imperfection or environmental damage. Students are easily engaged in discussions and organized debates. For example, students can be divided into taxpayers, NASA scientists, NASA engineers, Congress members, and astronauts. The student groups can be presented with a scenario involving a “rescue” mission to the International Space Station, costing X amount of money, involving Y number of astronauts, aborting an important mission testing Z technology or particular scientific investigations. Or they can research what space pollution is and decide what level, if any, is acceptable and why.

Use your imagination and knowledge of your students to come up with additional perspectives related to the International Space Station and concepts in science and technology.

Here are additional related resources from the National Science Digital Library Middle School Portal: Space-Age Living: Building the International Space Station; Boeing Integrated Defense Systems: The International Space Station; and NASA Human Spaceflight.

Image from http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0605/iss2_sts114_big.jpg

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