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NASA Helio Club: Capstone Project

The Artemis II mission patch appears in the center screen of the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on April 1, 2026, shortly before the mission launched to the Moon.
PIA26741
Levels
  • Intermediate (6-8)
Material Type
  • Activity/Hands-on
  • Unit (of Study)
Heliophysics Big Ideas
  • Big Idea 1.2 – The Sun is active…
  • Big Idea 2.3 – The Sun is the primary source of light…
  • Big Idea 3.1 – The Sun is made of churning plasma…
  • Big Idea 2.2 – The Sun defines the space…
  • Big Idea 3.3 - Our Sun, like all stars, has a life cycle.
  • Big Idea 3.2 – Energy from the Sun is created in the core…
NGSS
  • ESS1 - Earth's Place in the Universe
  • PS4 - Waves and their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer
  • PS3 - Energy
  • PS1 - Matter and its Interactions
  • PS2 - Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions
  • ETS1 - Engineering Design
  • ESS2 - Earth's Systems
Heliophysics Topics
  • Aurora
  • Sun
  • Space Weather
Heliophysics Missions
  • Voyager
  • Solar Orbiter
Related Missions
  • Hubble Space Telescope (Astro)
  • Kepler
  • TESS
  • James Webb Space Telescope (Astro)
  • ISS
Material Cost per Learner $1 – $5
Language English

NASA Helio Club is a collection of six club sessions, or lessons, that complete a comprehensive module created for a middle-school audience (ages 10-14) to introduce basic heliophysics concepts to learners. Designed for both after school clubs and classroom environments, each session takes approximately two hours, or approximately two class-periods. Each session includes a full collection of educator instructions, learner handouts, and assessment tools.

Capstone Project: In this optional capstone project, learners are challenged to use what they learned about NASA missions throughout the club sessions to design their own mission. This project introduces even more NASA missions, examines the different ways of collecting data on missions, and models the steps that scientists and engineers take to conceptualize and execute a mission.

The capstone project is most effective if you run the entire club. Find the full club/curriculum here

The NASA Helio Club Youth Guide ↗  includes the handouts for all six sessions, plus additional resources for the capstone project. Other resources include Educator Background Information ↗ and a complete Materials Checklist↗  for all sessions. All content is connected to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).