New NASA website available for kids: Two award-winning websites for kids have joined forces to further inspire a new generation of explorers. Click here to see for yourself!

NASA’s former science and space websites have now combined to bring users a streamlined version that provides several new web features with interactive graphic design and easy, versatile navigation. The hybrid site includes the extensive and rich science and technology content of the ‘old’ Space Place with over 50 NASA science missions enriched with years of research in science and education. These sites offer the best of NASA material for elementary school students.
The site includes over 300 separate modules available in English and Spanish. Modules are sorted into menus for Space, Earth, Sun, Solar System, People and Technology, and Parents and Teachers. Information mirrors the missions of the NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, as well as the agency’s commitment to education and public engagement.

Visitors can filter the menus by subject or type of activity (game, hands-on project, or exploration) and use the search field to produce customized menus. All pages are printer friendly.

Space Place provides easy-to-use tabs for: space, sun, earth, solar system, people & technology, and parents & educators. Within each section of the website you can further narrow your search by “Play” (interactive web games), “Do” (educational activities that are usually one-page print-outs) and “Explore” (photo galleries, videos, and external links). The website is very successful at integrating educational concepts into many of its “game-like” activities for kids. It also hosts well-designed student activities for teachers to use in the classroom; a great opportunity for free, hands-on learning materials supplied by NASA.

A personal favorite, the “Make a Star Finder” activity, allows participants to explore the sky at night! Instructions are simple: select the current month of the year, download a single page constellation map, print, fold and “learn your way around the night sky by finding some of the constellations.”  The Star Finder activity can also double as a simple game for several kids to play together. See photo below.
Send your questions, comments, thoughts or concerns to NatGeoEd@ngs.org
–Julia from My Wonderful World