Adapting and Extending the Moon Adventure Game
The Moon Adventure Game was designed for use in museums with groups of 3–6 players at a time. However, the game can easily adapt for use in other settings and with larger groups by expanding and extending the game experience. You may also want to expand the experience by adding NASA images, videos, audio, and visualizations. Embellish your experience and create a more atmospheric environment by using of NASA’s Spotify playlists for background music, keep lights in your space dim, or add relevant content from other NISE Net Explore Science: Earth & Space activities and NASA resources. Please download a copy of the Game Guide for more resources:
Extending the Moon Game Experience with
NISE Network Explore Science: Earth & Space Hands-on Activities
Explore Science: Earth and Space activities can be used with players before or after the game to go further in depth with Moon content. Activities can also be used to engage players waiting to start the game. Digital versions of all NISE Network activities are found at the links below.
- Exploring the Solar System: Hide and Seek Moon is an engaging way for early childhood learners to experiment with some of the tools scientists use to study objects that are very, very far away, and to learn about how cultures around the world have viewed the Moon. (Suitable for early childhood.)
https://www.nisenet.org/catalog/exploring-solar-system-hide-and-seek-moon-2018 - Exploring the Solar System: Big Sun, Small Moon demonstrates the concept of apparent size and how the Sun and Moon appear the same size in our sky, even though the Sun is much bigger than the Moon.
https://www.nisenet.org/catalog/exploring-solar-system-big-sun-small-moon - Exploring the Solar System: Pocket Solar System encourages learners to make a scale model of the distances between objects in our solar system and discover that there is a lot of space between planets in the process.
https://www.nisenet.org/catalog/exploring-solar-system-pocket-solar-system - Exploring the Solar System: Craters demonstrates how impact craters form, what they can teach us about the history and composition of planets and moons, and geological processes on other planets, moons, and asteroids.
https://www.nisenet.org/catalog/exploring-solar-system-craters-2018 - Exploring the Solar System: Observing the Moon supports facilitators in hosting observing the Moon events and using low-powered viewing devices with participants—includes information on finding night sky objects and difficult Moon concepts.
https://www.nisenet.org/catalog/observing-the-moon - Exploring Science Practices: Measure Up! provides caregivers a structured experience to practice important early childhood appropriate science process skills, including measuring, using tools, and counting with their young learner. (Suitable for early childhood.)
https://www.nisenet.org/catalog/measure-up - Exploring the Solar System: Story Blocks provides a creative opportunity for participants to tell their own story of exploring the Moon using blocks featuring components of future NASA Moon missions. (Suitable for early childhood.)
https://www.nisenet.org/catalog/moon-story-blocks - Exploring the Solar System: Moonquakes encourages learners to discover differences and similarities between natural processes on the Earth and Moon while interacting with a hands-on model of a quake.
https://www.nisenet.org/catalog/moonquakes
Extending the Moon Game Experience with
NASA Images, Videos, Audio, and Visualizations
NASA offers a wide variety of different types of media. The following resources may be helpful if you are considering adding printable take-aways and posters, imagery, videography, or multimedia experiences.
- NASA Activities
- What's in your #NASAMoonKit? Show us what’s in your suitcase
https://www.nasa.gov/nasamoonkit
- What's in your #NASAMoonKit? Show us what’s in your suitcase
- Printable Moon take-aways for the public
- NASA printable Moon bookmarks
https://spacestem.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/2019-05/blue%20bootprint%20v8a%20copy.pdf
https://spacestem.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/2019-05/Large%20type%20v7a%20copy.pdf - NASA paper Moon cutouts
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/paper_moon_cut_out-01.pdf - NASA's "Forward to the Moon with Artemis" activity booklet
https://www.nasa.gov/exploreractivities/ - Legacy of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing Handout
https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/386/legacy-of-the-apollo-11-moon-landing-handout/ - Moon Observation Journal
https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/12/moon-observation-journal/
- NASA printable Moon bookmarks
- Printable Moon posters
- NASA printable Moon posters
https://spacestem.nasa.gov/printables - Decorative Poster for International Observe the Moon Night
https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/400/decorative-poster-for-international-observe-the-moon-night/ - NASA Solar System Exploration Poster set
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/925/solar-system-and-beyond-poster-set/
- NASA printable Moon posters
- Audio Playlists and Songs
- Atmospheric sound clips which can be played on a continuous loop:
- "Dinks and donks" from Mars from InSight Lander InSight's seismometer
https://www.nasa.gov/specials/InSight-Sounds/Cropped-Dinks-and-Donks-sample.wav - Sonification of a Hubble Deep Space Image
https://soundcloud.com/nasa/hubble-treasure-trove-sonification?in=nasa/sets/spookyspacesounds
- "Dinks and donks" from Mars from InSight Lander InSight's seismometer
- More NASA Sounds and Music
https://www.nasa.gov/connect/sounds/index.html- Atmospheric Sounds – NASA Voyager Space Sounds (about 30 minutes each)
https://music.apple.com/us/album/nasa-voyager-space-sounds/336195159
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Mkw0XZjzLe4q67mdaoOXS - Atmospheric sounds – Spooky Space Sounds
https://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/features/halloween_sounds.html
https://soundcloud.com/nasa/sets/spookyspacesounds
- Atmospheric Sounds – NASA Voyager Space Sounds (about 30 minutes each)
- Atmospheric sound clips which can be played on a continuous loop:
- NASA Moon Trek
Moon Trek provides easy-to-use tools for browsing, data layering, and exploring high-resolution images of the lunar surface. Using Moon Trek, many hundreds of lunar data products can be visualized, stacked, blended, and downloaded. Detailed metadata for each data product is also made available to the user. While emphasizing mission planning, Moon Trek also addresses the lunar science community, the lunar commercial community, education and public outreach, and anyone else interested in accessing or utilizing lunar data. Its analysis tools allow users to perform a wide range of analyses such as measuring distances, creating elevation plots, and conducting lighting and slope analysis. Users can also draw bounding boxes around any areas of interest to generate output files for 3D printing of desired surface features. - LROC Resources – Quickmap and Image Gallery
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, is a system of three cameras mounted on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that capture high-resolution black and white images and moderate resolution multi-spectral images of the lunar surface. The LROC team consists of scientists, staff, student researchers, and an Instrument Development Team from various disciplines, led by Arizona State University. The LROC website includes a lunar image gallery and a highly customizable web-based mapping and analysis tool that covers the lunar surface. - AstroPix
A one-stop shopping experience that makes finding the right astronomy image easier than ever. AstroPix offers access to the public image galleries of many of the leading astronomical observatories under a single unified interface. Images are organized by featured topics, image type, telescope, subject, and electromagnetic spectrum band. This site is supported by NASA under the NASA’s Universe of Learning program. Content is curated and supplied solely by the partnering institutions. - NASA Image and Video Library
A simple search interface drives discovery across images, videos, and audio clips from decades of the agency’s history. Browse famous historical and up-to-date mission photos along with beautiful Earth and space images. The recently revised website is a good place to start any media search associated with space exploration. The Most Popular tab is a great way to browse some of NASA’s most iconic images.
https://images.nasa.gov/ - NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS)
Located at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, SVS works closely with scientists to create data visualization products that promote a greater understanding of NASA Earth and space science. Thousands of visualizations are available—with new ones added frequently—and include images, animations, and short movies on wide-ranging topics like NASA science. Browse the collection by theme, as well as search by keyword, mission, instrument, etc. Visualizations can be downloaded in a variety of formats and resolutions.
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Media Galleries and Interactives
A wide range of media from NASA missions, research, and educational efforts connected to JPL. This collection is heavily weighted toward planets, dwarf planets, and moons in the solar system, including amazingly detailed surface imagery of rocky bodies and dynamic swirling clouds of gas giants.
The Solar System Treks are online, browser-based portals that allow you to visualize, explore, and analyze the surfaces of other worlds using real data returned from a growing fleet of spacecraft. You can view the worlds through the eyes of many different instruments, pilot real-time 3D flyovers above mountains and into craters, and conduct measurements of surface features. The portals provide exciting capabilities for mission planning, planetary science, and public outreach.- Solar System Treks: https://trek.nasa.gov/
- Mars Trek: https://trek.nasa.gov/mars/
- Vesta Trek: https://trek.nasa.gov/vesta/
- Images: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages
- Videos: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos
- Infographics: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/infographics/
Extending the Moon Game Experience with
Additional Moon Themed Activities
Howtosmile is a digital library of hands-on STEM activities.
- Howtosmile Activity Extensions for the Moon Adventure Game
This blog post from Howtosmile is a resource for educators currently using the game—or those planning to add the game to their museum programming—to extend the out-of-world experiences of players. Activity extension suggestions are organized by the five challenges of the game. - Additional Howtosmile Activities Connected to the Moon and Earth & Space Science
If you are interested in even more Earth & Space science activities featuring the Moon in Howtosmile, use this search link to see the full list.
Learn More
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Moon Adventure Game: https://www.nisenet.org/moongame
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Moon Adventure Game contents: https://www.nisenet.org/moongame-contents
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Moon Adventure Game digital kit download: https://www.nisenet.org/moonadventuregame
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Moon Adventure Game training videos: https://vimeopro.com/nisenet/moon-adventure-game
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Moon Adventure Game logos https://www.nisenet.org/catalog/moon-adventure-game-logos
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About the project: https://www.nisenet.org/moongameproject
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Explore Science: Earth & Space toolkits: https://www.nisenet.org/earthspacekit
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Explore Science: Earth & Space 2020 toolkit: https://www.nisenet.org/earthspacekit-2020
Acknowledgements
This material is based upon work supported by NASA under Grant Number 80NSSC18K1219. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).