Space Biology: Did life come from outer space?

Kontext / Contexte

Space fascinates most students. For this reason, the European Space Agency (ESA) has developed and made available a whole range of teaching materials that are freely available and can be used in the classroom at the discretion of any teacher. The context of space is used to cover various topics in the field of science and technology. The topics in this teacher training are:
- Comets and life
- Life in extreme conditions
- Space Bears: Experiments with the Tardigrades.
All topics are illustrated through experiments and activities. For each of these topics, there is a detailed written guide that will be made available to participants on the ESERO Luxembourg website (esero.lu).

Zielsetzung / Objectifs

Knowledge:
The participants:
- get to know the esero.lu website and the "teaching materials" section,
- improve their understanding of scientific methods in the context of space.
- get new ideas for their science lessons with pupils in secondary education.

Skills:
Participants will be able to
- use the presented teaching materials including the experiments in their lessons,
- implement their own experiment variants according to the presented concept,
- design their science lessons in an activity-oriented and interdisciplinary way.

Attitude:
The participants:
- actively participate in the training,
- are motivated to experiment with space topics in class and to teach the concepts presented to their own students.

Inhalt / Contenu

- Comets: Design and observation of a comet and its components for life.
- Harvesting techniques and preservation of tardigrades.
- Observation of tardigrades
- Tardigrade resilience tests in different environments or in space.
- What constitutes life and what is the impact of the space environment on humans and microorganisms.

Arbeitsformen / Approche méthodologique

- Presentation of the educational material made available to teachers by ESA / ESERO Luxembourg.
- Carry out practical experiments in the form of group work
- Discussion and exchange

Referent, Referentin / Formateur, formatrice

Bo Byloos, Space Microbiologist and Project officer at LSA
Sarah Roth, Neurobiologist and Science Communicator

Remarques / Anmerkung

Parking: https://www.science-center.lu/fr/infos-pratique