Deep Space Diary Chapter Three: Designing for Discovery

‘Build a space telescope big enough to capture light from distant stars’

In this chapter, students think about the designs for a space telescope including:

• designing a suitable mirror
• devising a method of keeping the telescope cool
• designing and building a model of a telescope that can be unfurled in space.

Students complete this in a printable booklet, with videos and other multimedia content to help explain the tasks and provide information. Teachers also have access to a comprehensive guide.

Deep Space Diary general guidance

This Deep Space Diary forms part of a series aimed at helping KS2 students find out more about our Solar System, light, colour, infrared and much more.

There are six chapters that make up the Deep Space Diary; together they provide over 60 hours of hands-on, multimodal learning. However, students do not need to do each activity from each chapter; each activity can be studied independently. There is detailed guidance for how they could be integrated into your curriculum.

Whilst the student materials are provided in booklets which can be easily printed, all of the materials are enhanced by the inclusion of multimedia content such as video and animations. These can come to life within the booklet if students have access to phone or another device with the Zappar app installed. Or they can be downloaded directly by the teacher.

Each booklet is accompanied by teacher guidance that is packed with information about how you can use the materials in class, lists of any resources needed, questions you can ask students to stimulate further interest, and links to related/supplementary activities that can be used to enhance the lessons.