Many teachers tell us they do not feel confident when it comes to teaching about space. Others are looking to add a little spark to their lesson plan. In both cases, we can help!
We like to think of space as a context to teach anything – biology, science, mathematics, but also history, geography and art. You definitely don't need to teach space only when covering your space unit! And you can even team up with other teachers (e.g. phys ed, music, language arts) to design engaging cross-curricular projects with space as the common thread.
Space has the unique ability to inspire young people across all genders, cultures and communities. So use this to your advantage!
This page contains resources for K–12 youth and educators that are curriculum relevant and have a Canadian twist. It also showcases many ideas, tips and tricks to help you bring space in the classroom. Ideas to help you teach about space and STEM, but also to get your students thinking about space.
Helping you learn the basics of space
Do you need to learn some basics about space to feel more confident when teaching about it? Or do you need to brush up on your space knowledge before teaching your space unit?
A number of professional development opportunities are also available across the country through science centres, universities and organizations like Let's Talk Science and Discover the Universe (astronomy).
Ideas by grade level
Kindergarten and elementary
Make a space corner in your classroom. Add posters, space arts, crafts and drawings, space-themed books, STEM toys and board games and perhaps even costumes for the little ones (you can make your own!). You can also hang inflatable or cardboard planets, string lights or use projections or little dollar store stars on the ceiling.
Build a mini-greenhouse or a class garden and participate in Tomatosphere to grow space tomatoes – and make space salsa out of your grown tomatoes afterwards! We have a number of plant-related activities that you can do with your students. And you can also check the teacher tips below for more ideas!
Play space-themed music while your students do arts and crafts, while they relax or read or team up with the music teacher to have the students create a fun space symphony.
Have some free time between lessons? Looking for a fun way to reward your students? Let them play Mission: Astronaut or any of our digital games or get them to learn about plant biology with Minecraft Tomatosphere Adventure. If you feel competitive, challenge another classroom to reach the leaderboard in a friendly Mission: Astronaut competition against your students!
Make a collaborative space mural in your classroom. You can even make it a grade or school-wide project!
Use our digital cutout to turn your students into astronauts and download and print their portraits to decorate your classroom.
Learn about the Moon and Artemis missions and set out to collect rocks around the school like astronauts will collect them on the Moon, and then test them like a geologist.
Secondary
Explore Earth and learn about geography and the science of our Earth through photos taken by astronauts and satellite imagery georeferenced on a map.
3D print an astronaut, satellite, space robot or spacecraft and use them as pawns on boardgames or for other activities.
Have students participating in science fairs explore a topic related to space. If they make it to the Canada-Wide Science Fair, their space project could fall into the aerospace category, but could also relate to Earth and climate change, curiosity and ingenuity, disease and illness, or many other categories.
Challenge your students to find solutions to real space issues with our Space Brain Hack.
Encourage students to participate in the annual Space Apps Challenge taking place on the first weekend of October.
Build a class garden or use a water tower and participate in Tomatosphere to grow space tomatoes – and make space salsa out of your grown tomatoes afterwards! We have a number of plant-related activities that you can do with your students. And you can also check the teacher tips below for more ideas!
Create quizzes or hold a fun game show-type of activity about the Moon using our question banks (available in various formats: multiple choice, true or false, single answers):
Test your students' knowledge about astronauts, the RADARSAT Constellation Mission, the OSIRIS-REx mission and the International Space Station using our online quizzes.
All grades
Organize a space-themed week with one activity or one book per day during World Space Week in October, your space unit or at any other time (suggestions here!). You can also give a challenge to your "astronauts in training" each day. Once they complete all their challenges, they become "real" astronauts.
Are you an immersion or language teacher? Have your students practise their language skills using our bilingual French-English content and activities.
Invite a guest speaker or register for a virtual astronaut talk. You can also enquire with a local space company or university program. Many of them gladly accept invitations from schools.
Train like an astronaut! Team up with the gym teacher to run fitness activities indoors or outdoors (tip: type "health" in the filter bar).
Ask students to write a poem, such as a haiku or limerick inspired by the Moon, the stars or the vastness of space.
Space, but make it fashion! Get your students to learn about a planet of the solar system and challenge them to design a spacesuit thinking of what the spacesuit would need in terms of equipment for them to survive on the planet.
Highlight important milestones of the Canadian space program, past and future. For example, have them write a journal entry or create a time capsule on the day that the first Canadian flies around the Moon.
Organize a field trip to a local science centre or space-related organizations. Our travelling exhibitions sometimes travel to libraries, community centres and remote locations.
Meet our team at science festivals, educator conferences and other public events. Our events calendar is updated regularly, so check often!
Set up a mock mission with your students. Give them a role (e.g. mission control operator, astronaut, robotics operator), a goal (e.g. fix a satellite, repair the Space Station toilet, conduct a science experiment) and throw them challenges throughout their mission (e.g. incoming asteroid, loss of communication with the ground, helium leak). They will practise teamwork, communications and decision-making skills and even learn how to manage risk.
Get outside to gaze at the sky with your students. There is lots to observe even during daytime. As homework, you can have them look at the night sky and fill out a Moon observation journal. We encourage you to look up too – it's a sure way to inspire you! And there is no need to be an astronomy buff to enjoy the beauty of the stars. Here are a few astronomy basics and tips (did you know that you can also spot the International Space Station with the naked eye from your backyard?). You can even watch the northern lights from your home thanks to AuroraMAX!
By topic
The beauty of space is that it can be used to teach many subjects, from biology and astronomy, to science, geography and language arts. It's also a great topic for cross-curricular projects as illustrated by the teacher testimonies below.
To help you navigate our offering, here is a non-exhaustive list of activities by subjects.
Have your students become space robot operators to practise measuring angles and geometry transformations with Robomaths.
Link math and data to enhance math learning while meeting curriculum expectations. Our friends at Let's Talk Science created, originally with the CSA's support, two projects using math skills to analyze data from scientific experiments:
Living Space (grades 6-9) asks students to measure the temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide levels in their classroom, and compare them to optimal levels. They can then make data-driven decisions about the conditions and develop a plan to improve their classroom environment. The final step is to present their findings. Math skills are essential at every step.
Explore Earth and learn about geography and the science of our Earth through photos taken by astronauts and satellite imagery georeferenced on a map.
Living Space (grades 6-9) asks students to measure the temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide levels in their classroom, and compare them to optimal levels. They can then make data-driven decisions about the conditions and develop a plan to improve their classroom environment. This activity is managed by Let's Talk Science and was originally funded by the CSA.
Dragons' Den: Pitch your invention to a panel of experts and convince them to invest in you.
Lunar Resupply Mission: design, build, test, but also budget for your lander to safely deliver a payload to the Moon.
Language arts and second language skills
You can use any of our bilingual resources to have your students practise second language skills. They can also practise their writing and public speaking skills with these activities.
Space, stars, the Moon have been a source of inspiration for centuries for painters, poets, musicians and other artists. Challenge them to create their own space artwork.
Fun fact: Did you know that many astronauts are also musicians and artists or choose art as their second career? Some, including Canada's Chris Hadfield, have played music in space. Others have drawn, water coloured, painted, sown, quilted and written poetry.
Want your students to train like an astronaut? Eat like an astronaut? Or learn how astronauts stay mentally healthy?
We have a number of activities like Close encounters of the tasty kind, Move like the Earth and the Moon and Lunar rescue that will get your students moving or learn about good eating habits. Simply type "health" or "fitness and nutrition" in the filter box. You can even team up with a phys ed teacher or run a class outdoors!
These toolkits also compile our various resources related to:
Find activities by typing "communication" or "teamwork" in the filter bar. Teamwork and communications are key skills for astronauts and in the space sector as a whole!
Career counselling, diversity and inclusion, perseverance in school
Be inspired by the journey of astronauts, engineers and even aspiring scientists through these videos.
Learn about Indigenous ways of knowing and how the CSA collaborates with Indigenous organizations and communities.
Learn about how astronauts take care of their mental health in space and use our resource toolkit to give a little boost to students who might need one.
Sustainability
Think of solutions to reduce the ecological footprint of satellite missions with our Space Brain Hack. Students have to ensure that satellites are responsibly and sustainably designed, made and operated by finding ways to "green" one phase of a mission's life cycle.
Be part of LunaSustain, a project on the sustainable space exploration by Panasonic Foundation, National Institute of Aerospace, and bully! entertainment, in collaboration with NASA.
Robotics and coding
Introduce your students to coding with How old are you on Mars. It only requires a computer with a browser.
Other coding or robotics activities can be found simply by typing "coding" or "robotics" in the filter box of our Activities and experiments page.
Thematic days and holidays
Use thematic days to address space topics
There are a number of thematic days and holidays that you can use to address various space topics in a fun way – because every day is a great day to celebrate and learn about space! 😉 Here are a few ideas:
Collaborate with other teachers to organize an epic school-wide space fest using our toolkits and other resources on one of the many space-related occasions:
World Space Week (October 4-10)
International Day for Human Space Flight (April 12)
National Space Day (first Friday of May – mostly in the United States, but some people also highlight it in Canada)
Asteroid Day (June 30)
International Moon Day (July 20)
International Observe the Moon Night (annually in September or October when the Moon is around its first quarter)
Challenge your students to calculate trajectories , distance, speed, velocity or mass of a space vehicle on Pi Day and International Day of Mathematics (March 14).
Explore Earth and learn about the science of our planet through georeferenced astronaut pictures and satellite imagery during Geography Awareness Week (third week of November).
You can easily find calendars online listing all these special days – and many more! Be creative! The sky is NOT the limit (pun intended)!
Create space-themed valentines on Valentines Day (February 14) or get inspired by space and the Moon to write poems that are out of this world on World Poetry Day (March 21).
Listen to our playlists on World Music Day (June 21).
Learn about the science conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS) on World Health Day (April 7) or other health promotion days.
Show your students that even astronauts can face mental health challenges and how they deal with them on National Child and Youth Mental Health Day (May 7) or World Mental Health Day (October 10).
Answer the very popular question on how astronauts go to the toilet in space on World Toilet Day (November 19 – we guarantee you that this one will be a hit!).
Explore the water cycle, how water is recycled on the ISS and how astronauts deal with garbage (video coming in January 2026) with CSA astronauts David Saint-Jacques, Chris Hadfield and Jeremy Hansen on Global Recycling Day (March 18).
Before the school year ends and just in time for Canada Day (July 1), boost your students pride by teaching milestones of Canada's history in space.
Let your students play one of our digital games like Mission: Astronaut or Minecraft Tomatosphere Adventure on National Video Games Day (September 12).
And on World Teachers Day, on October 5, it will be our turn to celebrate you and thank you for what you do!
Homeschooling
Resources for at home learning
The resources highlighted on this page are also valuable if your children are homeschooled. You can find resources for home education on our page for parents as well.
Teacher tips, tricks and testimonials
A few of our favourite teachers have shared some fun and interesting ways that they include space into their own classroom. The curriculum and learning outcomes may differ in each province and territory, but these tips and tricks are sure to inspire you.
Teaching astronomy for the first time can be intimidating. The students find it fascinating and they have lots of questions, some of them complex, and I don't have all the answers. Resources like the ones from the CSA and Discover the Universe have helped me prepare my classes, given me confidence and served as a cheat sheet for those tough-to-answer questions. Over the years, astronomy has become my favourite subject!
Space gardens to cover many learning outcomes
Space gardens are always a HUGE hit! That's why the Let's Talk Science's Tomatosphere program is such a long-running and popular program at our school. And I'm not even talking about the space salsa we prepare with the tomatoes we harvest!
We use different growing systems to conduct activities I designed to teach about:
Hydroponics
Plant biology
Environmental sciences and monitoring
Energy sources
Efficiency and automation through coding
Structures and forces
Heat and temperature
Plant structure and function
Soil analysis and crop growth
In addition to the Tomatosphere tomatoes, we also grow Indigenous plants to incorporate, with guidance, Indigenous Ways of Knowing authentically into lessons. We also sprouted potatoes indoors in simulated Martian regolith like in The Martian. We didn't use poop like Mark Watney though! 😉
I have students analyze and compare Earth, Moon and Mars regolith physical and chemical properties. They select seeds to plant for their nutritional value and growing potential. Students design and build space habs and greenhouses, insulating them and coding micro:bits to sense temperature inside the structure.
A potato growing system built by students. (Credit: Amanda Green)
The CSA has a similar system in its Moon Base (right). (Credit: CSA)
A student shows Tomatosphere plants to former CSA astronaut Robert Thirsk, who helped create the program over 20 years ago. (Credit: Amanda Green)
Different mini-greenhouses built and programmed by students. (Credit: Amanda Green)
Graphs, anomalies and the solar system
I have grade 6 students use the CSA web page about the solar system to gather data to use to create graphs. After creating graphs, we look for anomalies or interesting things that stand out (e.g. how much bigger Jupiter is than other planets, the length of time of a Venutian day compared to an Earth day, the number of satellites Jupiter and Saturn have). Students then ask questions about these anomalies to base research on for class projects. I find that this creates more interesting projects and promotes the research process. Students who have a greater degree of interest in space often choose even more interesting ideas to study (e.g. asteroids, specific moons, differences in stars).
Martian medicines
Through our Martian Medicines project for Science and Environmental Outdoor Education (grade 8), students learn how to meld traditional Indigenous wisdom with scientific knowledge as they work to design medicines to heal a variety of illnesses and injuries that could occur on a human space exploration mission.
Wide variety of hands-on activities
The CSA has a really wide variety of activities. There is truly something for everyone! For starters, there's Tomatosphere, led by Let's Talk Science in collaboration with the CSA. My students had the opportunity to plant tomato seeds that had flown on the International Space Station!
With the Rover Driving Academy, we remotely operated a rover on a practice terrain, looking for different kinds of rocks. My advice for a teacher who isn't sure what to do would be to pick an activity that appeals to them. Their enthusiasm will be contagious!
Students on a mission
We love using the entire school year to simulate a space-themed mission: showing the students an inspirational astronaut or mission video, giving them a place to launch to and learn about (e.g. International Space Station, the Gateway lunar station, Moon, Mars) and then a problem to solve.
Scavenger hunt
I like organizing a scavenger hunt online where the students work in teams of two to find technologies or items we use on Earth that came from space technology. For example, cordless drills were invented for spacewalks and International Space Station (ISS) repairs, the diabetes pump was developed using technology from the ISS water filtration systems, etc. The teams can then make trading cards to display on bulletin boards or to showcase their learning and teamwork on parent-teacher nights.
Political leadership meets science
Throughout a full school year, my grade 9 students create a plan for inhabiting Mars, keeping sustainability in mind and the limited resources available. They form political parties and create a reasonable platform describing how they hope to lead the first human settlement on Mars. Students also code automated devices to conserve energy resources for everyday tasks. This project allows them to learn about electrical circuits, coding, environmental chemistry, political leadership and elections (and public speaking skills!), scale factor and 3D Design.
All classes were tasked with making a device that would be useful for our Mars settlement. It had to be controlled by a coded micro:bits. At the end of the project, we had a Martian Micro:bits Device Showcase.
Genetics and growing plants on Mars
In science 9 Biological Diversity, students explore how to genetically modify edible plants so that they will be better able to grow in a Mars habitat's greenhouse. They research different crop plants to see how nutrient dense they are and how hardy they are, then they decide on a specific plant to focus on. We have a guest speaker from the University of Alberta come in to talk about CRISPR (or clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, a family of DNA sequences) and other forms of genetic modification and then students look into what they would choose to modify in their plant and why. They create a research style poster and present their proposals at a research fair AND we plant all of their crops in a tower garden and a soil garden.
Geology and coding
I integrate LEGO Robotics and Scratch coding projects into my space program. For example, I create a "Mars" or "lunar" mat with different coloured areas or use LEGO pieces to emulate different types of rocks or features (e.g. blue represents ice crystals in a crater; red represents basalt rocks). Students then code their robots to either respond to specific types of rocks or collect them. This can also be done virtually using Scratch.
Grabbing attention with video stories
I love using cool astronaut stories to introduce science concepts (e.g. Chris Hadfield wringing out a washcloth in space, NASA's videos of antacid in a water balloon or water ball ping-pong) and getting kids to do a "claims, evidence and reasoning (CER)" as an exit slip about the video. Simple and easy. Works great with middle years students.
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