Satellites in Your Everyday Life
Students learn how satellites support everyday life through GPS timing, weather watching, communications, satellite TV and internet, and Earth imaging for farms and disasters, and why low orbits and geostationary orbits (about 22,000 miles up) behave so differently.
Grades 5-8About 15 minutes of narrated flight, plus discussion stops8 stops
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What students will see and do
Students start above Earth with Sputnik, visit the International Space Station in low orbit, return to Earth for GPS, geostationary communications, weather satellites and Earth imaging, then visit the Hubble Space Telescope and the Moon. Aetherion pauses at the ISS (living with sixteen sunrises a day), Hubble (why a telescope works better above the air) and the Moon (comparing a natural satellite with human-made ones).
Learning objectives
- Explain that an orbit is continuous falling around Earth while moving fast sideways.
- Compare low Earth orbit with geostationary orbit in height, speed and uses.
- Describe how GPS uses precise timing from several satellites to find a location.
- Identify at least four ways satellites affect daily life, such as weather, navigation, communication and disaster response.
NGSS connections
| MS-ESS1-2 | Gravity keeps satellites and the Moon in orbit, and orbital height sets their speed and period. |
|---|---|
| MS-PS4-3 | Satellites carry information as digitized radio signals, a more reliable way to send data over long distances. |
| MS-ETS1-1 | Students consider the design needs that lead engineers to choose different orbits for different jobs. |
Stops on this journey
- From One Beeping Ball
- Life in Low Orbit (discussion stop)
- How GPS Finds You
- Parked Over One Spot
- Watching the Weather
- Pictures for Farms and Disasters
- A Satellite Looking Outward (discussion stop)
- Earth's Natural Satellite (discussion stop)
Vocabulary
- satellite
- orbit
- low Earth orbit
- geostationary orbit
- GPS
- atomic clock
- remote sensing
- infrared