280 Planetary Exploration and Education: How We Learn About Our Solar System and Beyond

This session links how we teach and learn about the solar system to how we have gained that information (i.e., space missions). Descriptions of teaching activities/courses, and strategies for working with students are encouraged.

Wednesday, 22 October 2025
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
HBGCC, 214B

Colibrí: A Titan STEM Adventure

Paper number: 280-5
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 2:50 PM – 3:05 PM

Authors

Abstract

Middle school and high school have been identified as critical transition times for student career plans (Charlesworth and Banaji, 2019; Legewie and DiPrete, 2014), and keeping students engaged with STEM topics at this stage is important for development of the future work force. The Space Club program was created in 2015 to provide structured STEM resources to teachers to guide learning on timescales of weeks to months. This program currently reaches over 100,000 students a year in kindergarten through eighth grade, implemented by a network of 2000 educators. Teachers lead students through engineering challenges in the Mission to Moon and Mission to Mars curricula, engaging students with crewed space exploration. To expand student engagement with planetary science and highlight the collaborative relationship between science and engineering, we are developing a new middle school curriculum set on Titan. Students are tasked with investigating surprising data from the fictional robotic mission Colibrí, currently exploring Titan. Through a series of missions, students are introduced to Ocean Worlds and their significance to the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system; learn about properties of light and how Titan’s haze affects exploration; explore Titan’s polar hydrocarbon seas; and consider different techniques for scientific exploration as they design a rover to study habitability. Each mission includes an introduction to scientific concepts that are key to planetary exploration, as well as one or more hands-on activities to explore scientific concepts and develop problem solving and engineering design skills. Lessons also include materials introducing STEM professionals working in related areas to inform students about real-world career paths. Lessons will be piloted in four schools in the 2025 to 2026 school year, revised in summer of 2026, and made available to the broad Space Club network by 2027. Our development team combines expertise in planetary science, engineering, and education to ensure that lessons incorporate real-world concepts and skills in an accessible, practical format that opens the world of planetary exploration to students.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 57, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-413783

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