Space for Schools: Texas matches free live space tools to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for Science, from Kindergarten to high school Astronomy and Physics. Each card names its student expectation and has a 10-minute activity.
Curriculum links last reviewed November 2026.
Matched to the Earth and space strand of each grade: day, night and the sky in Kindergarten, the Sun and Moon in Grade 2, the solar system in Grade 3, the Moon's changing shape in Grade 4, and the Earth's turning and light in Grade 5.
Where the ISS is right now, and how fast it is going.
describe the pattern of day and night, and point to where on Earth it is night right now.
Put the tracker on the board and find Texas. Is it on the bright side or the dark side? Point to a place where children are asleep right now. What will Texas look like at bedtime?
A live 3D Moon, lit the way it is right now.
observe the Moon, describe its shape and draw what they see.
Show the Moon globe: how much of the Moon is lit today? Students draw it, then look for the real Moon tonight with a grown-up and draw it again. Do the two pictures match?
A live 3D globe of our nearest star.
describe the Sun as a star that gives us light and heat, and explain that the Moon shines because it reflects sunlight.
Spin the Sun globe, then open the Moon globe. Which one makes its own light? In a dark room, shine a flashlight on a ball: the flashlight is the Sun and the ball is the Moon.
The telescopes working in space, from Hubble to JWST, and what each one is for.
compare how an object in the sky looks to the eye and through a telescope.
Look at the Moon by eye or with binoculars, then at a telescope picture of it. What can you see with the telescope that you could not see before? Find one telescope on the page that works in space.
A live map of the solar system, with every working deep-space spacecraft where it is today.
model how the Earth orbits the Sun and the Moon orbits the Earth, and name the planets in order from the Sun.
Find the Earth on the map, then name the planets in order going out from the Sun. Then three students act it out: the Sun stands still, the Earth walks around it, and the Moon circles the Earth as it goes.
A live 3D Moon, lit the way it is right now.
collect data on the Moon's shape over a week, and use the pattern to predict how it will look next.
Record today's Moon from the globe: its shape and how much is lit. Students draw the real Moon each evening for a week on the Moon diary, then predict next week's shape and check it.
Where the ISS is right now, and how fast it is going.
explain that the Earth turns once about every 24 hours, which causes day and night and makes the Sun seem to move across the sky.
Mark the edge of the night side on the map at the start and end of the lesson. Which way did it move? Then go outside and mark the tip of a shadow at the same two times: which way did that move, and why?
Why you must never look straight at the Sun, and the safe ways to watch an eclipse.
demonstrate that light travels in a straight line, using a pinhole viewer.
Make a pinhole viewer from two pieces of card and use it outside, with backs to the Sun. Why does a tiny hole make an image of the Sun? Draw the light as straight lines from the Sun, through the hole, to the card.
Matched to Grade 6 (forces, seasons and tides), Grade 7 (speed, the solar system and gravity) and Grade 8 (Newton's laws, waves and stars). Moon phases now sit in Grade 4 and high school Astronomy.
A live 3D Moon, lit the way it is right now.
use the positions of the Earth, Sun and Moon to predict spring and neap tides.
Check today's phase on the Moon globe. Spring tides come near new and full Moon, when the Sun and Moon pull in a line; neap tides come near the quarters. Which does this week bring? Check a tide table for the Gulf Coast.
Real-time 3D globes of the Moon, Mars and the Sun.
explain gravity as a force that pulls on every object, and why it pulls less on the Moon and on Mars.
A backpack has a mass of 5 kg, so gravity pulls on it with about 49 N on Earth. Use 1.6 N/kg for the Moon and 3.7 N/kg for Mars: how hard does gravity pull there? Which force stops it falling through the floor?
Where the ISS is right now, and how fast it is going.
calculate average speed from a distance and a time, using the space station's real orbit.
One lap of the ISS is about 42,700 km and takes about 93 minutes. What is its average speed in km per minute? Check your answer against the speed the tracker shows in km per second.
A live map of the solar system, with every working deep-space spacecraft where it is today.
describe where the planets and other bodies of the solar system are and how they move, and explain that gravity keeps them in orbit.
Compare Mercury and Neptune on the map: which moves faster around the Sun, and why? Then find a spacecraft beyond the planets. What would happen to the planets if the Sun's gravity switched off?
Asteroids and comets passing close to the Earth.
describe asteroids and comets: what they are made of, where they come from and how they move.
Find this month's closest approach. How many times farther away than the Moon (about 384,000 km) does it pass? What is the difference between an asteroid and a comet?
A real-time 3D globe of Mars.
compare the Earth with Mars to explain what lets life exist on Earth: its distance from the Sun, liquid water and its atmosphere.
Spin the Mars globe. In pairs, list three things a person would need to live there that the Earth gives us for free. Which one comes from the Earth's distance from the Sun?
Every upcoming rocket launch, and when it lifts off.
describe how Newton's three laws of motion act together during a rocket launch.
Pick the next launch. Name one moment for each law: the rocket waiting on the pad (first law), the engines pushing gas down while the gas pushes the rocket up (third law), and the rocket speeding up faster as it gets lighter (second law).
The telescopes working in space, from Hubble to JWST, and what each one is for.
compare light waves by wavelength and frequency, and explain how telescopes use different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Find which kind of light Hubble and JWST each see. Which has the longer wavelength, visible light or infrared? Why does JWST need to stay so cold?
Matched to the one-credit Astronomy course (after Algebra I and IPC or Chemistry): the Sun, Earth and Moon system, units and scale, Kepler's laws, space weather and the effects of satellites on astronomy.
A live 3D Moon, lit the way it is right now.
model how the Moon's orbit causes its phases, and predict when the Moon rises and sets in each phase.
Check today's phase and the Moon's age on the globe. Where is the Moon in its orbit right now? Use your model to predict: does tonight's Moon rise before or after sunset, and when is it highest in the sky?
Every upcoming eclipse, and how much of the Sun will be covered from your town.
model how the Moon's orbit causes solar and lunar eclipses, and why there is not one every month.
Find the next solar and lunar eclipses on the tracker. Use a lamp, a ball and a tilted hoop for the Moon's orbit to show why most new Moons pass above or below the Sun.
How far each spacecraft is, and how long its signal takes to reach us.
use astronomical units, light-hours and light-years to describe distances in space.
Take Voyager 1's distance from the page. Give it in kilometers, in AU (1 AU is about 150 million km) and in light-hours. About what fraction of a light-year is that? Why do astronomers use different units at different scales?
Orbit details for thousands of satellites: height, period and inclination.
relate Newton's law of gravitation and Kepler's third law to the orbits of real satellites.
Pick three satellites at very different heights. Square each period and cube each orbit radius (height plus 6,371 km). Is T2 divided by r3 the same for all three? What does that number tell you about the Earth?
Tonight's chance of seeing the northern lights, town by town.
explain the origins and effects of space weather, from the solar wind and coronal mass ejections to the aurora.
Check tonight's forecast. Why is the chance of seeing the aurora so low in Texas? What could happen on the Sun to change that, and about how long would its particles take to reach us?
Where the tracked junk in orbit is, and how crowded each height has become.
evaluate how space debris, bright satellites and radio interference affect astronomy.
Show the debris map, then the Starlink tracker. List two ways satellites help astronomers and two ways they get in the way. What could satellite companies do to help?
Matched to Physics (uniform circular motion and universal gravitation) and Integrated Physics and Chemistry (what changes the strength of gravity).
Every tracked satellite in orbit, moving live.
analyze uniform circular motion with equations, using a satellite's speed and orbit radius.
The ISS moves at about 7.7 km/s, about 6,780 km from the Earth's center. Work out its centripetal acceleration with a = v2/r. Compare it with g at the Earth's surface: what does the answer tell you?
Low, medium, geostationary and polar orbits, and what each one is used for.
use Newton's law of universal gravitation, in scientific notation, to compare the pull on satellites in different orbits.
Use F = GMm/r2 to compare a 500 kg satellite in low orbit (r = 6,800 km) with the same satellite in geostationary orbit (r = 42,164 km). How many times weaker is the pull, and why does the higher satellite move more slowly?
Real-time 3D globes of the Moon, Mars and the Sun.
explain with evidence how mass and distance change the strength of gravity, comparing the Earth, the Moon and Mars.
Surface gravity is 9.8 N/kg on Earth, 3.7 on Mars and 1.6 on the Moon. Mars has about a tenth of the Earth's mass, yet its gravity is more than a third of ours: what else must matter? Use F = GMm/r2 to explain.
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 4). Space for Schools: Texas. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://orbitalradar.com/schools/us/texas
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Orbital Radar. “Space for Schools: Texas.” Last modified November 4, 2026. https://orbitalradar.com/schools/us/texas.
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title = {Space for Schools: Texas},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
howpublished = {\url{https://orbitalradar.com/schools/us/texas}},
url = {https://orbitalradar.com/schools/us/texas},
urldate = {2026-11-04},
note = {Accessed 2026-11-04}
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