On August 29, 2020, our friends at the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire kicked off their Maker and Food Fest. This year, they took their annual event online, inviting engineers, artists, scientists, chefs, and makers of all kind to contribute virtually. One of these exhibitors the Children’s Museum was kind enough to invite was our Education Coordinator, Faithe Miller Lakowicz!

This week’s focus is life in space—and today, we’re designing our own mission patch. Mission patches are worn by the astronauts and people affiliated with a particular space mission. Each patch has a unique design, which includes a picture relating to the mission and usually the crew members’ names. Since 1965, patches have been created for all NASA manned missions, as well as many crew-less expeditions.

Now that you’ve been accepted to participate in the first-ever crewed mission to Mars, you’ll need to design your own patch for this historic mission! Download & print our patch template, or start from scratch on blank paper. Let your creativity run wild, and share your work when it’s complete!

Learning about and increasing awareness of endangered species is one of the easiest ways to help. Let’s bring some endangered species to the front of our minds by making our own game of “Guess Who.”

Enjoy these free downloadable activities…Reduce paper waste by using double-sided printing, or printing your activity on the back of a used page!

Upcycle leftover packaging to create this cute all-ages cloud mobile!

Make your own celestial “dirty snowball” with common household materials!

a simple all-ages activity

Have you ever traveled far away from home? Did you send a postcard to your friends or family to share the experience with them? Let your imagination take you on a trip faaaaar from Earth, at the very boundaries of our solar system—what might THAT postcard look like?!

Open-ended all-ages activity, courtesy of NASA.

Assemble and test your own space shuttle glider with this at-home project from NASA!

Need a fun, somewhat clean craft to do with the whole family? Make your own galaxy scratch paper! This craft can be done with items you can find around the house, so no need to brave the stores for any of these supplies! I grabbed my sisters to try out this fun craft.

Can you find the celestial bodies?