Asteroid Primary Resource

This primary resource investigates how scientists are working to stop asteroids colliding with Earth. Discover the threat that asteroids pose to our planet and the damage they have caused in the past. What is the difference between an asteroid, meteor and meteorite? What happened when a meteor hit the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia? How and why do scientists think an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs? What ideas to scientists have for changing the course of asteroids?

In our Asteroid primary resource sheet pupils will learn all about asteroids, meteors and meteorites. They will also discover five ideas that scientists are researching to stop any dangerous space rocks should they be heading for a collision with Earth.

The teaching resource can be used in study group tasks for researching space and space technology, as a printed handout for each pupil to review and annotate, or for display on the interactive whiteboard using the images included in the resource for class discussion.

Activity: Ask children to choose one of the five ideas scientists have for stopping a dangerous asteroid heading towards Earth. ask them to draw an annotated poster explaining the science behind their chosen method. They could also include facts/info from the primary resource about asteroids in general.

N.B. The following information for mapping the resource documents to the school curriculum is specifically tailored to the English National Curriculum and Scottish Curriculum for Excellence. We are currently working to bring specifically tailored curriculum resource links for our other territories; including South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. If you have any queries about our upcoming curriculum resource links, please email: schools@ngkids.co.uk

This Science primary resource assists with teaching the following Upper Key Stage 2 Science (Year 5) objectives from the National Curriculum:

 Pupils should be taught to:  

• Describe the movement of the Earth, and other planets, relative to the Sun in the solar system

This Science primary resource assists with teaching the following Sciences Second level objectives from the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence:

• By observing and researching features of our solar system, I can use simple models to communicate my understanding of size, scale, time and relative motion within it.

Scottish Curriculum for Excellence Sciences Fourth level objectives:

•  By researching developments used to observe or explore space, I can illustrate how our knowledge of the universe has evolved over time.

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