The modules being developed for Astrobiology in Secondary Classrooms (ASC) allow students and teachers to see the connections among concepts in physics, biology, chemistry, geoscience, astronomy, mathematics, and ethics through hands-on activities. The ASC modules will be a web-based interdisciplinary curriculum in Astrobiology that is free and easily accessible to any secondary instructional program. The curriculum is designed to supplement existing state curricula by providing a framework that draws all areas of science together through engaging activities, providing teachers with activities that meet both state and national standards along with encouraging science literacy.

Module 1: What is Astrobiology?

  1. Overview of astrobiology – Fundamental questions in astrobiology
  2. Overview of the NASA Goddard Center for Astrobiology
  3. How does the investigation of planetesimals fit into the field of astrobiology?

Module 2: Astrobiology and the search for life in the universe

  1. Understanding life and life systems
  2. Building blocks of life

Module 3: A changing world in a changing universe

  1. What was the environment like in early Earth?
  2. Early Earth Timeline
  3. The discovery of archaea and their extreme habitats
  4. The discovery of extreme organisms on Earth as a precursor to the discovering life in the Solar System?

Module 4: Astrobiologists and planetesimals

  1. What are planetesimals and why are they important to astrobiology?
  2. How do scientists study planetesimals?
  3. Planetesimals of interest to astrobiologists
  4. Contact with comets and sample return
  5. Structure and general features of comets
  6. Compare and contrast familiar comets by parts, structure, and chemical makeup

Module 5: How and why do astrobiologists study comets?

  1. Introduction to the electromagnetic spectrum and the study of comets
  2. Spectral signatures as fingerprints
  3. How do scientists know what liquids & gases planets/planetesimals contain?
  4. What is the evidence that the building blocks for life are in comets?
  5. What is the evidence that comets brought water and the building blocks of life to earth?

Module 6: Ethics of astrobiology

  1. Science results from controversy -- the nature of science
  2. Sample return to Earth
  3. Ethics of visiting other planets/moon