Ten activities for Space Week

World Space Week takes place annually from 4-10 October, but running a Space Week is a great thing to do at any time of the year. Here are some ideas to get you started, either as a class or as part of a whole school space week.

Ten activities for Space Week

1. Excite younger learners with these engaging short films showing the alien Paxi exploring the solar system, comets and life on Mars.
2. This year is the 50^th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing, so why not celebrate the Moon, with this new resource which is linked to current lunar research.
3. Register your school for Mission X, an exciting international project in which young people train like astronauts and learn more about the importance of healthy eating and exercise. These activities can be accessed here.
4. Why not get your school excited about exoplanets by taking part in this competition to name an exoplanet.
5. Find out about exoplanets, (planets beyond our solar system) in this resource aimed at 9-11-year-olds.
6. Get your school thinking about the search for life on Mars with these wonderful activities from Explorify.
7. Work scientifically using space as a context by investigating Martian soil or measuring the impact craters of meteorites.
8. Challenge children to design a building that can withstand the challenging Martian environment and enable future astronauts to grow plants on Mars.
9. Borrow meteorites through this loan scheme for use in your school.
10. Explore the Earth from Space in these activities linked to geography. Children can also write postcards from space as if they are astronauts on the International Space Station.

Explore more resources and support...

• How to plan and run your own Space Week (online guide)
• Teaching primary science: human spaceflight (free online course)
• Teaching primary science: exploring space (free online course)

Note: This article was originally published on 29 September 2017 and was updated in October 2019.