Atoka Parks and Recreation Space Camp
Lily Donaldson
July 10, 2021
This past week at Atoka Parks and Recreation’s Space Camp, we worked through Art Technically’s astrobotany lesson plan learning about growing plants in space and taste-tested astronaut ice cream and nutrition shakes.
These elementary school students in Tipton County, Tennessee learned about plant science, the electromagnetic spectrum, grow lights, space travel, and the stressors of gravity and harmful radiation on life, and they did hands-on exploration of a grow light.
Art Technically workshop leader Lily demonstrates a grow light as students gather around.
Atoka Parks and Rec.
Students explore color science by holding up different colored objects, including a green plant, to the grow light.
Atoka Parks and Rec.
Elementary school students hold up their Mars Perseverance worksheets.
Atoka Parks and Rec.
Students make Mars landing alien ships out of fruit and pretzels for a snack.
Activity sponsored by Walmart and the University of Tennessee.
Workshop leader Lily gathers materials for the Astrobotany workshop including workbooks, astronaut ice cream, and Mars Perseverance worksheets. Perseverance is a car-sized Mars rover designed to explore the crater Jezero on Mars as part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission. The parachute used to land the Perseverance rover on Mars contained a coded message. Students used the Perseverance worksheet to see the secret message from NASA scientists, which is also printed on Workshop Leader Lily’s skirt.
Workshop Leader Lily