Have you ever been lost? What does it feel like? Being lost can be scary if you don't know what to do. What would you do if you were lost in a store? What if you got lost on a camping trip? What if you were in outer space? How would you get home?

Teacher Notes

The Task

In this activity you will be learning your address and your place in space. After viewing the video, The Magic School Bus Lost in Space, you will pretend that you are a student in Ms. Frizzle's class and help the class figure out how to get home. You will create your own intergalactic address book, so that on your next trip into the universe you will have a map to get back home.

The Process

Step 1 - The Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space. Watch the video until the class gets lost and Ms. Frizzle disappears.

Watch the video from the beginning again, paying close attention to all of the places The Magic School Bus goes. Where did they start? What is the next place they go to? Keep a list. It may help you to retrace their journey and find your way home.

Step 2 - Brainstorm

First brainstorm all of the ways you know that would help you to get home if you were lost.

• How could an adult, like a policeman, help?
• What would you need to know to tell a policeman?
• What is your full address? (House or apartment number, street, town or city, state, country, continent, planet, solar system, galaxy)
• How could a map help you?

List all the places the Magic School Bus visited.

Step 3 - Listen to the story My Place in Space by Robin and Sally Hirst. List as many things as you can about the way Henry described where he lives to the bus driver. Add them to your brainstorm list. Henry lives in Australia. Do you know where that is? Look at the webpage About Australia (http://www.about-australia.com) to see a map of Australia.

Henry can give the bus driver his exact address. Can you tell where you live? If you can't, your homework is to find out your home address (house or apartment number and street name).

Step 4 - How do we know that the information Henry gave the bus driver is correct? First, we better see where Henry lives. Do you remember? Right, it was in Australia. Let's go visit the only country that is also a continent:

• The Lonely Planet http://www.lonelyplanet.com.au/dest/aust/aus.htm
• Australian Animal Archive http://www.gullivermedia.com.au/eco.html

Step 5 - Where do you live?

Now that we know about maps, can you find a map of where you live? Here are two map programs that will do that for you.

• Mapquest

  http://www.mapquest.com

Can you find a map of California?

• Color Landforms - California maps

  http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/states/ca_0.html

How about the United States and North America?

• Map Machine http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/index.html

Step 6 - Blast off!

Now we are ready to leave planet earth and take a guided tour of the Milky Way and the Solar System at these two sites:

• Star Child http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/universe_levle1/milky_way.html
• The Milky Way Galaxy- Our Home http://www.windows.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/tour.cgi?link=/the_universe/Milkyway.html

Step 7 - Make your own intergalactic address book:

Cover - your name

Page 1- your street address

Page 2- your town

Page 3- your state

Page 4- your country

Page 5- your continent

Page 6- your planet

Page 7- your solar neighborhood

Page 8- your galaxy

Decorate each page with pictures of the location.

Step 8 - Take an imaginary bus ride around your classroom. Be prepared to be like Henry and give your full address to the bus driver. You cannot get on the bus until you tell the driver your full address.

Resources

Internet:

• About Australia

  http://www.about-australia.com Covers information on accommodations, attractions, tours, places of interest, culture, education, maps and weather.

• Color Landforms - California Maps

  http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/states/ca_0.html Shows the following maps of California: Shaded relief map, County map, Northern California, Southern California, Satellite image, and PostScript map.

• Compass Tag

  http://www.eduplace.com/ss/act/compass.html Children play a game using the cardinal directions to locate different objects around the classroom.

• The Lonely Planet

  http://www.lonelyplanet.com.au/dest/aust/aus.htm The Lonely Planet is a virtual tour of Australia including the Opera House, Ayers Rock, the drama of the outback, the Great Barrier Reef, and the cosmopolitanism of Sydney.

• Map Machine

  http://www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/maps/ Viewable and downloadable physical or political maps of the world are provided.

• Map Maker, Map Maker, Make Me a Map

  http://www.calmis.cahwnet.gov/file/occguide/CARTOGPH.HTM Find out how cartographers (mapmakers) help us get where we want to go.

• The Nine Planets

  http://dept.physics.upenn.edu/nineplanets/intro.html The Nine Planets is a collection of information about our Solar System.

• Star Child

  http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/universe_level1/milky_way.html This is a learning center for the young astronomer that covers the universe, the solar system and "space stuff".

Learning Advice

To help you create your address book:

• keep a paper and pencil with you to write down any ideas.
• keep a folder to save any pictures that you find that you might want to use to illustrate your address book.

Evaluation

You will be graded by:

• how well you can recite your whole address.
• the completion of your individual address book.
• your cooperation in completing tasks.

Conclusion

There is a vast universe that surrounds us and many ways to find where you are. Go back to the brainstorm sheet from step 1. Can you add anything to it? Is there information that you originally wrote down that is incorrect? Correct it.

Reflection

What do I know now that I didn't before? What did I do best? What could I have done better? What activity did I like best?