Rocket How A Toy Launched The Space Age

The author of The NOVA Space Explorer's Guide recounts the story of one of the 20th century's most remarkable technological accomplishments. More than 60 photos, including NASA color images, illustrate this illuminating introduction to the physics of space flight. Includes simple rocketry activities that youngsters can try safely at home.

Bring science to life with these 13 action-packed stories about famous scientists. Students will learn basic skills and procedures of science while learning about such people as Shirley Jackson, Charles Goodyear, and James Wright. The historically accurate accounts cover varied aspects of physical, biological, and earth sciences. Stepping Stones to Science has been used as a recommended text at Clarion University of Pennsylvania.

Packed with fascinating facts and motivational activities, this book helps you create a thematic unit on rocketry. Lessons include information on the beginning of rocketry and explanations of basic scientific principles of rocket flight. Featuring scientific experiments for students, language activities-even a dramatic play (based on the science of rocketry)-this book is a complete teaching package. Grades 4-8.

More famous in his day than Einstein or Edison, the troubled, solitary genius Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945) was the American father of rocketry and space flight, launching the world's first liquid-fuel rockets and the first powered vehicles to break the sound barrier. Supported by Charles Lindbergh and Harry Guggenheim, through fiery, often explosive, experiments at Roswell, New Mexico, he invented the methods that carried men to the moon. Today, no rocket or jet plane can fly without using his inventions. Yet he is the "forgotten man" of the space age. His own government ignored his rocketry until the Germans demonstrated its principles in the V-2 missiles of World War II. The American government usurped his 214 patents, while suppressing his contributions in the name of national security, until it was forced to pay one million dollars for patent infringement. Goddard became famous again, monuments and medals raining upon his memory. But his renewed fame soon faded, and Goddard's pivotal role in launching the Space Age has been largely forgotten.

This guide provides teachers and students many opportunities. Chapters within the guide present the history of rocketry, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) 21st Century Space Exploration Policy, rocketry principles, and practical rocketry. These topics lay the foundation for what follows--a wealth of dynamic rocket science classroom activities that work. The activities focus on Sir Isaac Newton's laws of motion and how they apply to rockets. They incorporate cooperative learning, problem solving, critical thinking, and hands-on involvement. They support national and state standards for science, mathematics, and technology across many grade levels. All of the activities are designed with the classroom in mind. They include clear descriptions, background information for the teacher and student, detailed procedures and tips, lists of readily available materials, assessments, questions for discussion, and extensions. The activities are designed to foster excitement and a passion for learning. It has been created as a two to six week classroom unit depending upon the grade level of the students but individual activities can be extracted and used as stand-alone classroom experiences. Teachers will find activity objectives and principles clearly stated along with the vocabulary terms necessary for understanding the principles involved. [The original "Rockets Teacher Guide" was published by NASA's Education Division in the mid-1990s.].

Simple text and photographs present the life of Robert Goddard, the scientist who developed the first liquid propelled rocket.