Investigate Meteorites

ARTHUR ROSS HALL OF METEORITES Grades 3-5 Investigate Meteorites

Overview NYS Science Core Curriculum Students will understand where meteorites come from, what they are PS 1.1c: The Sun and the planets that made of, and what scientists can learn from them. revolve around it are the major bodies in the solar system. Other members include • Before Your Visit: Students will read and discuss an informational text comets, moons, and asteroids. on meteorites and discuss what they learned. Common Core Standards for ELA/ • During Your Visit: In the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites, students will Literacy: W.3-5.2, W.3-5.8, RI.3-5.1, observe objects and take notes on the properties of different types of RI.3-5.2, RI.3-5.10 meteorites. Then, in the Cullman Hall of the Universe, students will explore how environmental conditions impact the preservation of meteorites. • Back in the Classroom: Students will use what they learned from the Museum visit and reading to produce an illustrated text that describes where two different types of meteorites come from. Background for Educators Meteorites are rocks from space that survive a fiery passage through our atmosphere to land on Earth. All meteorites come from inside our solar system. Most are fragments of asteroids, and orbited the Sun between Mars and Jupiter for millions of years. The oldest rocks in the universe, they contain a record of the conditions under which the early solar system formed. A small number are pieces of rock from the surfaces of other planets, the Moon, asteroids, and possibly comets. Other than rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts, meteorites are our only samples of these other worlds. Before Your Visit Activity: Reading Plan how your students will explore the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites using In this activity, students will read and discuss an informational text on the student worksheets. meteorites and discuss what they learned. Distribute copies of the worksheets Have students read “Meteorites: Rocks from Space” independently. Ask them to students before coming to the Museum. You may want to review the to use the large margin on the right-hand side of the page for note taking as worksheets with them to make sure they read. For example, ask them to underline and star key passages in the they understand what they are to do. text and use the margin space to paraphrase the information they think is the most important. They may also use the space to draw diagrams of the processes they are reading about, or to write down questions about part of the text they don’t understand. Then use the prompts below to guide a class discussion: • Where were meteorites before they landed on Earth? • Describe key features of meteorites, including: • how they look, outside and inside • similarities and differences among meteorites • what they are made of • Why do scientists study meteorites?

Discussion can occur in pairs, small groups, or as a class. Whatever the discussion format, make sure that students support all of their ideas with information from the text, including the photos and captions.

During Your Visit Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites 1st floor (30-45 minutes) Students will choose one meteorite each from the “Origins” and “Building Planets” sections of the hall, and use their student worksheets to sketch and describe their specimens and their origins. *Before leaving this hall, be sure that students had a chance to observe the Ahnighito meteorite. See instructions below.

Cullman Hall of the Universe: Willamette meteorite Lower Level (15 minutes) Students will explore how environmental conditions impact the preservation of meteorites. First, ask them to observe the huge iron Willamette meteorite and read about where it was found. Then use the following questions to help students compare the Willamette to Ahnighito, the huge iron meteorite in the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites (see insert for its history). What about their appearance is different? What about the environment they were found in resulted in these differences? (Ahnighito landed in the Arctic, where it is cold and dry; these conditions kept it from changing much in its time there. Willamette was found in a much warmer area where it rains a lot, in the Pacific Northwest United States. The rain rusted and eroded the part of the meteorite that was exposed to the elements, creating huge pits and holes on that side.)

Back in the Classroom Activity: Compare Meteorites In this activity, students will explore similarities and differences between the meteorites they studied at the Museum.

Give each student two post-its or index cards, and have them write the name of one of the specimens they studied in the exhibition on each post-it, along with some key features that they think are the most important. Encourage them to focus on the material that the specimens are made of.

In pairs, small groups, or as a class, have students discuss the two specimens they chose, focusing on the following question: How were the two meteorites you chose different from one another? They may continue to add features to their post-its during the discussion if they have anything to add.

Have the groups organize their all post-its or index cards into two groups according to how similar they are to each other, and have them list what the similarities within each group are. Share these similarities as a class, and discuss what scientists can tell about where and how the meteorites formed from studying these features.

Activity: Write an Illustrated Text Using what they’ve learned from the pre-visit reading and their Museum visit, have students create an illustrated text that answers the question: • Where do meteorites come from? Have them include, as examples, the two types of meteorites they drew during their Museum visit, both in their writing and as accompanying illustrations.

Meteorites: Rocks from Space

What are meteorites? Meteorites are rocks from our solar system that have made a fiery passage through our atmosphere to land on Earth. Most of the meteorites that we have collected are parts of asteroids that have orbited the Sun between Mars and Jupiter for millions of years.

Meteorites are the oldest material in our solar The 34-ton Ahniguito meteorite system. They give us a record of how the early is on display at the American Museum of Natural History. solar system formed. Meteorites can be huge. Photo © AMNH/D.Finin The biggest one ever found weighs around 60 tons — that’s about as heavy as six school busses! People have also found meteorites that are quite small. Some are about the size of beach pebbles or even grains of sand.

Meteorites are easy to spot against ice or sand, so they are easiest to find in deserts like the ones in Antarctica and Africa. Water causes meteorites to break down and rust, but in dry conditions they Scientists have been collecting can survive for a long time. meteorites in Antarctica for over 20 years. How do scientists study meteorites? Photo © Nancy Chabot In the lab, scientists often cut meteorites into thin slices and study them under special microscopes. The outside surfaces of meteorites are often dark and dull, but the insides can be beautiful — especially when they are cut and polished to shine and reflect like mirrors.

Meteorites are not cut into thin slices just to make them beautiful. Scientists study them to figure out what minerals they contain. They also cut small pieces of meteorites to share with other scientists so that many people can study the same meteorite.

Seen under a microscope, the Allende meteorite helps scientists identify different minerals. Photo © AMNH

Meteorites: Rocks from Space page 2 When a meteorite is cut open and polished people can see patterns inside. The mineral crystals can be both large and small. In iron meteorites the crystal pattern shows how slowly the meteorite cooled. That helps researchers learn the age of the meteorite. This criss-crossing is known as the Widmanstatten pattern. Photo © AMNH/J.Beckett

What can scientists learn from meteorites? The oldest meteorites are about 4.6 billion years old! Since they are the first solid things to form in our solar system and many have not changed, scientists use the age of these rocks to determine the age of our solar system. They are clues to what conditions were like when the solar system was young. They also give us hints about the elements that exist in our solar system.

Some meteorites teach us about planets, like Earth. These meteorites come from small planets that were smashed apart long ago when they collided with each other. From looking at these meteorites, we can learn what the insides of these former planets were made of. This gives us clues about the planets that are left. No one has ever been to the center of Earth, but we know from meteorites that Earth has a center made of nickel and iron. That center is called a core. Other planets have metal cores too. When planets form, metal sinks to the core because it is heaviest. Lighter materials form a rocky crust and mantle in layers around the core.

Choose a meteorite from the “Origins” section of the hall. What is this meteorite’s name? Sketch it and label its key features:

What is this meteorite made of?

How did this meteorite form?

Choose a meteorite from the “Building Planets” section of the hall. What is this meteorite’s name? Sketch it and label its key features:

What is this meteorite made of?

How did this meteorite form?