Improve a Space Glove
Youth improve their glove for more agility, strength, or to better protect against the hazards of their space environment.
Guiding Question
How can we improve our space gloves to make them more agile, stronger, or more protective?
TimingSetup
The Educator Guide has a script, materials list, and prep directions. Be sure to have it open and ready to help guide you through every activity. It will take about 30 minutes to prepare for this activity.
- Get the Message from the Duo ready.
- Set up the Materials Table.
- Copy Mission Profile Images (Educator Guide pp. 73–77).
- Prepare Mission Simulations (Educator Guide p. 63).
Listen Up!
A Message from the Duo
Youth Will Know
- They can choose materials that work together to meet multiple criteria.
- Designs do not always work the first time, and they can learn from failure.
- Using the improve step can help them refine their design after testing.
Youth Will Do
Improve their model space gloves and test them in a final Mission Simulation.
Did you know?
NASA held a competition in 2009 for engineers to design a better space glove and the prize was $350,000. The problem they wanted to solve was that the gloves must be pressurized against the vacuum of space, which made them very hard to move.
Quick Tips
Build on youth’s successes and failures; both are useful learning tools.