Space Math I Educator Guide

Audience: Educators
Grades: 7-9



These activities comprise a series of 20 practical mathematics applications in space science. This collection of activities is based on a weekly series of space science problems distributed to teachers during the 2004-2005 school year. The problems in this booklet investigate space weather phenomena and math applications such as solar flares, satellite orbit decay, magnetism, the Pythagorean Theorem, order of operations and probability. The problems are authentic glimpses of modern engineering issues that arise in designing satellites to work in space. Each word problem has background information providing insight into the basic phenomena of the sun-Earth system, specifically space weather. The one-page assignments are accompanied by teacher pages with answer keys.

Note: This collection was formerly published as the Extra-Credit Problems in the Space Science Educator Guide.

Space Math I [3MB PDF file]

Individual sections:
Introductory Pages
Problem 1, Aurora Timeline
Problem 2, Aurora Drawing
Problem 3, Radiation Effects
Problem 4, Solar Flares and CMEs
Problem 5, Do big sunspots make big solar flares?
Problem 6, Solar Storms and Satellite Orbit Decay
Problem 7, Solar Electricity
Problem 8, Solar Power Decay
Problem 9, Space Weather Crossword
Problem 10, Bird's-eye Look at the Sun-Earth System
Problem 11, The Height of an Aurora
Problem 12, Earth's Wandering Magnetic Pole
Problem 13, The Plasmasphere
Problem 14, Magnetic Storms
Problem 15, The Coronal Mass Ejection
Problem 16, Plasma Clouds
Problem 17, Applications of Pythagorean Theorem to Magnetism
Problem 18, Magnetic Forces and Particle Motion
Problem 19, The Solar Wind and the Bow Shock
Problem 20, Kinetic Energy and Voltage

Source: NASA