In this practical activity students analyse ice cores extracted from the icy worlds of Enceladus or Europa. This resource provides information about Enceladus and worksheets for both qualitative and quantitative analyses. In the video, Steve Althorpe explains how ice cores containing minerals can be made and then...

All life forms on Earth are based on organic biochemistry. This activity requires students to analyse an unknown soil sample (just recovered from a space mission to another planet!) and look for signs of possible indicators for life. Curriculum areas covered:

• Cell biology
• Food tests, including...

If there is life elsewhere in our solar system it’s likely to live in a pretty cold environment. In this resource, students investigate the effect of antifreeze on the freezing point of water and how it can allow fragile cells to survive extreme cold. In the video, Judith Green explains how students can plan an...

Could there be life on Mars? Perhaps so, although the high intensity of UV light means that it is unlikely to be found on the surface. The experiment demonstrates how bacteria grown on agar plates can be killed off by UV exposure. Curriculum areas covered:

• Microbiology
• Cell biology
• ...

The cell is the smallest unit of life and for many millennia single celled organisms were the only form of life on Earth. It’s this type of life that astrobiologists are looking for elsewhere in the solar system. In this activity, wallpaper paste is used to build model cells Curriculum areas covered:

• ...

This resource includes a suite of games designed to promote thinking, learning and understanding as well as being enjoyable and engaging. They are all based around molecules that play key roles in life on Earth.

In the ...

This resource, devised by Anu Ojha, uses the context of the planet Mars to investigate pressure, magnetic fields and meteorites. There is also a demonstration of how to cook up a comet.

The presentation contains...

High levels of ultraviolet radiation out in space drive reactions that can turn white beads into their coloured form. Students investigate how temperature affects the rate at which the beads turn back to white. At key stage five, students can use the results sheet template to find the activation enthalpy. In the...

These We Are Aliens! related biology activities for the class room have been devised by Chris Carr. The resources includes practical activities and worksheets. Supporting videos demonstrate the activities. The following curriculum areas are covered:

• Cell biology
• Food tests, including starch,...

These We Are Aliens! related chemistry activities for the class room, have been devised by devised by Steve Althorpe and Judith Green. The resources include games, practical activities and worksheets. Supporting videos demonstrate the activities. The following curriculum areas are covered:

• depression...

The We Are Aliens! teaching resources were produced to support the planetarium show made by NSC Creative. They have been produced by lead educators from the National Space Academy to use the context of space to teach physics, chemistry and biology in the curriculum. The resources contain practical activities,...

Conditions on other planets are unlikely to be within the same ranges as that experienced by Earth. However, a degree of variance from ‘ideal’ ranges may be tolerable for a small number of organisms known as extremophiles. This investigation looks at the effects of subjecting a living organism (yeast) to some...