Japan Lands on Asteroid

Japan has dropped a pair of rovers on an asteroid name Ryugu, which then sent back images of the terrain on the asteroid. This came as many firsts: first soft landing on an asteroid, first deployment rovers in low-gravity settings, and first close-up snapshot of celestial object that may have helped seed life on Earth billions of years ago. With this article, I chose to have students use the strategy of Two Roses and One Thorn. I would use this strategy to gain a better understanding of what needs to be taught more of during this article and what sections the students are gaining an understanding for. By using the Two Roses and a Thorn strategy, I will be able to assess what parts of the article students are understanding and what I need to better explain or be more detailed about. Also, by having the students write down one question that remains, I can go through and plan how to better explain each topic. After deciding the strategy to be used, I began to think of misconceptions that might arise with students and I came up with these 4:

1. Why would the Japanese land on an asteroid?
2. What is considered a soft landing if the probes were dropped on the asteroid?
3. Why is this first close-up of look at the sort of celestial object that might have helped seed life on Earth billions of years ago?
4. Why do the scientists think that this helped seed life on Earth?

Standard: Grade 6–8 Earth and Space Science: Develop and use a model to describe the role of gravity in the motions within galaxies and the solar system.

Grand Challenge: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe