1. ENGAGE:
   There are several ways to engage students in this activity. You could start by showing The Venus Transit, which can be streamed from the the Apple Learning Interchange or the South Carolina Educational TV website to show your students how math is important in the study of the solar system. This could be followed by the hands-on activity in the Educators Guide. Start the Extrasolar Challenge web activity with a story involving the need to create a model of Norbania for Norbert and Zot, who are homesick. You could discuss the definitions of the distance of the planet from the sun and the period of revolution of the planet around the sun. Students will need to watch their extrasolar system move and incorporate these new words as they write down their observations. Squeak, an engaging multimedia authoring environment, will grab the attention of young learners.
2. EXPLORE:
   In the Extrasolar Challenge, your students should first explore creating the Norbanian system. There are directions in the active book in the activity if they need them. Have them work in groups with each member writing down their observations of the motion in Norbania. By comparing their observations, they will get a better understanding of motion in Norbania. Finally, challenge them to do the five Squeak challenges.
3. EXPLAIN:
   Have your students describe and discuss the motion of their extrasolar system. They should explain what they observe clearly and note any patterns they see (e.g. the closer planets have shorter periods). If you have your students do challenge 1, have them explain how they did the scaling in Norbanian Astronomical Units (NAU) and discuss the differences they observe when picking different planets as their home planet for the NAU. If you have your students do challenge 2, have them explain how they took their data, show their plots of distance cubed as a function of period squared, and display their ratios of distance cubed over period squared in a table. Then they should discuss what they can conclude from the data. Your students should explain how their motion relates to Kepler's Third Law. To prepare students for an oral presentation, assign as homework the task to write out a presentation of their observations and analysis. Encourage them to accompany their words with pictures they draw. Download an MSWord version of a data table for this activity.
4. EXTEND:
   Close this window and follow the link in the Teacher Information area for a list of extensions with ideas ranging from straightforward to very challenging. You should modify the suggested extensions to fit the class time you have available and based on the knowledge level of your students.
5. EVALUATE:
   Have your students evaluate how reliable they believe their data to be and how their method of data gathering effected the results. Go to the NASA CONNECT web site to have your students submit their Squeak projects from challenges 3, 4, and/or 5 and we will post them if they are good examples. They can save their Squeak projects using the publish button on the navigator flap.