Lesson Plan: Attack From Outer Space

Essential Questions

• How can events in outer space affect our lives? 
• What do we know about outer space? What don’t we know?

Literature Connection

• Nonfiction: The Stars by H.A. Rey
• Short story: “The Space Rock” by Roland Smith (from Action’s November 2017 issue)

Preview Text Features (15 minutes)

Guide students to locate the article. Preview the text features by asking the following questions:

• Read the article’s title and subtitle (the text beneath the title). Make a prediction: What will you learn about in this article? Sample answer: I will learn about an event that took place in 2013, in which an object from outer space exploded in the sky above Russia.
• Look at the map and read its caption. What is the map’s main purpose? The main purpose of the map is to show where a particular meteor event took place (in Chelyabinsk, a city in Russia).  
• Look at the infographic. What is its purpose? The purpose of the infographic is to explain the differences between various kinds of space rocks.

Preview Vocabulary (10 minutes)

• Point out the vocabulary box. Read the words (atmosphere, streaks, debris, extinct, vast, wilderness) aloud and discuss their definitions.
• Play the Vocabulary Slideshow.

Make a Plan for Reading 

Before students start to read, walk them through a reading plan:

• Set a purpose for reading by telling students that they will find text evidence in “Attack From Outer Space” that supports important ideas about how meteor events affect life on Earth.
• Point out the Pause and Think boxes. Tell students they can check their understanding of what they’ve read by answering these questions.
• Point out the activity at the end of the story and tell students they will complete it after reading. Tell them to keep the Think About It! question at the bottom in mind as they read.
• Tell students that as they finish each section, they should think about how the text features on the page (e.g., photos, captions, and section headings) relate to what they’ve just read.

Guide students to read the article. Once they understand it well, discuss the following close-reading and critical-thinking questions.

Close-Reading Questions (15 minutes)

• In the first section of the article, what clues help you infer that people in Chelyabinsk were confused by what they saw in the sky on February 15, 2013? (text evidence) The author states that no one knew a space rock was headed toward Earth. People ran outdoors and pulled their cars over to look at the sky and try to figure out what they had just seen. They were puzzled. The lines “What was that? Was it a plane crash? Was it aliens?” suggest that residents were confused and concerned.
• The space rock exploded above Chelyabinsk rather than hitting Earth. How did it cause injuries? (cause and effect) The force of the explosion is what caused injuries. It caused walls to fall down, knocked people to the ground, and shattered windows. These events injured about 1,500 people.
• How was the asteroid that probably led to the dinosaurs’ extinction different from the meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk? (compare and contrast) The asteroid was huge—6 miles wide. The Chelyabinsk meteor was much smaller at 65 feet across. There were injuries but no deaths when the Chelyabinsk fireball hit, while the asteroid completely wiped out many species.

Critical-Thinking Questions (5 minutes)

• The article says that even small pieces of a meteorite can be sold for thousands of dollars. Why might this be? (inference) Meteor crashes are very rare events, so there is a limited number of meteorites to be found on Earth. When something is rare, it is often valuable. Gold and diamonds are good examples.

• Have students work in pairs to complete the Spotlight Skill Workout: Text Evidence activity. As a class, discuss students’ answers and the Think About It! question.
• Have students work independently to complete our Central Idea and Details Skill Builder, available in higher- and lower-level versions. (Click here to view all your Skill Builders for this article.)
• Writing prompt: Imagine that you lived through the meteor crash of 2013 in Chelyabinsk. Write a journal entry in which you describe the events of that day. Describe how your day began, what you saw, and how you felt. Use details from the article and your own imagination in your entry.