The age-old question, “Are we alone?” This lesson explores the steps humanity has taken to try and answer that question. How have we inadvertently signaled to the universe that we are here and how have we tried to send purposeful signals? What are some of the difficulties we face in trying to communicate over great distances? Have we had false alarms thinking that we had contacted life on other planets? What would life on other planets have to be like to survive there? Can life that exists on Earth tell us anything about life that might exist on other planets?

This Course includes great BONUS LESSONS:

• What on Earth is Astronomy?

• Mini-Lesson: Eclipses

• Mini-Lesson: Meteor Showers

• Mini-Lesson: Aurora

Little Green Men – the Search for Life Beyond Earth

1. Objective

2. Warm-up activity

3. How the question, “Are we alone?” affects us

4. Historical examples of more advanced societies impacting less advanced ones

5. Defining life and why the definition matters

6. Microbial life vs. advanced life

7. The possibility of life on other planets

8. Methods of detecting life from very great distances

9. Lessons from Venus on pollution

10. The possibility of life in our own Solar System

11. Our society’s fascination with life on Mars

12. Martian canals and ice caps

13. The Drake equation

14. SETI

15. Habitable zones

16. Spacecraft leaving the Solar System: Voyager 1 and 2, and Pioneer 10 and 11

17. Messages to aliens

18. Extremophiles on Earth and what they teach us about the possibility of life on other planets

19. The hadal zone

20. Exoplanets

21. Radio and television broadcasts from Earth to space

22. Signal strength and distance

23. False alarms and pulsars

24. Challenges of communication: common language and distance

25. Ramifications of discovering life on other planets

26. Test questions

27. Cross-curricular activities