Live space tools matched to the Next Generation Science Standards, from Grade 1 to AP Physics. Many states use their own standards built on the same framework, and most of these topics appear there too. Each card has a learning outcome and a 10-minute activity.
Space for Schools: United States matches 15 free live space tools to the Next Generation Science Standards and AP Physics 1, in 17 classroom activities. Each one has a learning outcome and a 10-minute activity. Curriculum links last reviewed November 2026.
Matched to 1-ESS1-1 (patterns of the Sun, Moon and stars you can predict).
Short video lessons for young children with Orby, our Earth mascot.
name some of the lights they can see in the night sky, and say which ones are made by people.
Watch one Lights in the Sky lesson together, then students draw what they might see from their bedroom window tonight.
Free printable coloring pages starring Orby, in A4 and US Letter, each tied to a short video lesson.
talk about what they have drawn: a rocket, the Moon, a satellite or the ISS.
Print one page per student. While they color, ask each table one question about their picture.
Your class's art and postcards flown to space and back with Club for the Future. Free to take part.
design a postcard about why space matters to them, and see it go to space.
Each student designs one postcard. Follow the steps on the page to send the class set together.
A live 3D Moon, lit the way it is right now.
describe how the Moon's shape changes in a pattern they can predict.
Look at today's Moon. Students predict how it will look in one week, then check the globe again.
Matched to 5-PS2-1 (gravity pulls objects down), 5-ESS1-1 (the Sun's brightness and distance) and 5-ESS1-2 (day and night, shadows).
When the space station passes over your town, to the minute, and where to look.
explain that Earth's gravity pulls the ISS toward the center of the Earth wherever it is, and it moves so fast that it keeps falling around it.
Find the next pass for your town. Students watch for it at home with an adult and report back how many seconds they saw it.
New York · Chicago · Los Angeles · Houston · Washington · Seattle · Atlanta
Where the ISS is right now, and how fast it is going.
explain day and night with Earth's spin, using the day and night shading on the tracker map.
Put the tracker on the board at the start and end of class. Mark the edge of the night side each time. Which way has it moved, and why?
A live 3D globe of our nearest star.
argue that the Sun looks brighter than other stars because it is so much closer.
Sunlight takes about 8 minutes to reach us. Light from the next nearest star takes over 4 years. About how many times farther away is it?
Matched to MS-ESS1-1 (the Earth-Sun-Moon system: phases, eclipses, seasons), MS-ESS1-2 and MS-PS2-4 (gravity) and MS-ESS1-3 (scale properties of objects in the solar system).
Every upcoming eclipse, and how much of the Sun will be covered where you are.
use a model of the Earth-Sun-Moon system to explain solar and lunar eclipses.
Find the next eclipse you could see from home. Model it with a lamp, a globe and a tennis ball.
A live 3D Moon, lit the way it is right now.
explain the cycle of lunar phases with the Moon's orbit around Earth.
Compare the globe with a lamp-and-ball model of today's phase. Where is the Sun in each?
How far each spacecraft is, and how long its signal takes to reach us.
use real distances to build a scale model of the solar system.
Voyager 1 reaches one light-day from Earth on November 18, 2026. If the Sun-Earth distance is 1 inch, how far away is Voyager?
Real-time 3D globes of the Moon, Mars and the Sun.
argue from evidence that gravity depends on mass, and explain that gravity keeps the Moon in orbit around Earth and Mars in orbit around the Sun.
A 100 lb student would weigh about 17 lb on the Moon and 38 lb on Mars. Mars has only about a tenth of Earth's mass, so why not 10 lb? (Hint: Mars is smaller, so you stand closer to its center.) Then spin each globe: what keeps each one in its orbit?
Matched to HS-ESS1-4 (motion of orbiting objects, including human-made satellites), HS-PS2-4 (Newton's law of gravitation), HS-ESS1-1 (the Sun's life span and nuclear fusion) and HS-ETS1-1 (global engineering challenges).
Every tracked satellite in orbit, moving live.
predict the motion of human-made satellites with Newton's and Kepler's laws.
Compare a satellite in low orbit with a GPS satellite. Use Kepler's third law to predict the GPS period from the low one, then check.
Orbit details for thousands of satellites: height, period and inclination.
test Kepler's third law (T squared is proportional to r cubed) on real satellites, and use Newton's law of gravitation to work out the strength of gravity at each height.
Take five satellites at different heights. Plot period squared against orbit radius cubed (add 6,371 km to each height).
A live 3D globe of our nearest star.
use a model to explain how energy from nuclear fusion in the Sun's core reaches Earth as radiation, and how long the Sun will last.
Start with the globe, then discuss: where does the energy we see come from, and how long will it last?
Where the tracked junk in orbit is, and how crowded each height has become.
analyze space debris as a global engineering challenge, with criteria and constraints.
Teams pick one clean-up idea from the debris removal guide and list its criteria and constraints.
Matched to the AP Physics 1 course first taught in fall 2024: Unit 2 Force and Translational Dynamics (2.6 Gravitational Force, 2.9 Circular Motion), Unit 3 Work, Energy, and Power (3.4 Conservation of Energy) and Unit 6 Energy and Momentum of Rotating Systems (6.6 Motion of Orbiting Satellites).
Low, medium, geostationary and polar orbits, and what each one is used for.
derive the speed of a satellite in a circular orbit and check it against the ISS.
Derive v = sqrt(GM/r) and work it out for the ISS at about 420 km. Compare with the 7.66 km/s on its tracker.
Satellites and rocket stages due to come back down, and when.
explain where an orbiting satellite's energy goes as its orbit decays.
Pick an object due to re-enter this week. Estimate its kinetic energy at 7.8 km/s if it has a mass of 1,000 kg.
Plain-language guides for teachers who want the background before the lesson.
These are our suggestions for where each tool fits. Always preview a page before using it with a class: some tools show ads, these school pages do not.
NGSS codes are shown as performance expectations, for example MS-ESS1-1.
Know a better fit for your year group, or a topic we have missed? Tell us and we will add it.
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Orbital Radar. (2026, November 2). Space for Schools: United States. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://orbitalradar.com/schools/us
“Space for Schools: United States.” Orbital Radar, 2 Nov. 2026, orbitalradar.com/schools/us. Accessed 2 Nov. 2026.
Orbital Radar (2026) Space for Schools: United States. Available at: https://orbitalradar.com/schools/us (Accessed: 2 November 2026).
Orbital Radar. “Space for Schools: United States.” Last modified November 2, 2026. https://orbitalradar.com/schools/us.
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