Artemis II is currently heading to the Moon — here are some classroom ideas to make the most of it
At the time of writing this post, four astronauts are travelling towards the Moon. NASA’s Artemis II mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on 1 April 2026, and over ten days the crew will loop around the Moon before returning to Earth. It is the first time humans have travelled this far from our planet since Apollo 17 in December 1972.
That is a genuinely wonderful hook for the primary classroom, particularly for KS2 teachers covering Earth and Space, but it has links with other science topics too.
What is the mission?
Artemis II is not a Moon landing — the crew will not set foot on the surface. Instead, it is a test flight: NASA needs to check that the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems, navigation and communications all work as they should with a real crew on board, before committing to a landing mission.
The four crew members are Reid Wiseman (commander), Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency. The mission carries several notable firsts: Glover is the first person of colour, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first non-American citizen to travel beyond low Earth orbit.
That last detail is worth mentioning to children. Space exploration is not solely an American or Russian endeavour — it involves teams and agencies from across the world. In the UK we can celebrate our own astronauts Helen Sharman (first Brit in space) and Tim Peake.
Classroom ideas
Here are a few activities that connect directly to the mission, most of which need little or no preparation.
How the Earth and Moon move relative to each other
This papercraft Sun, Earth and Moon model gives children something to make and hold, and it journey into focus in a way that a diagram on a whiteboard rarely does. It is a good starting point for a conversation about why the journey takes ten days even in a spacecraft travelling at thousands of miles per hour. Have students use the model to explain why Artemis 2 won’t be in a straight line, but rather a “figure eight” trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth.
You could even act this out on a playground – with children playing the role of Earth, Sun and Moon.
Moon Craters
The Activity: Fill a tray with flour (the moon’s surface) and sprinkle a thin layer of cocoa powder or cinnamon on top (the lunar regolith). Drop marbles or balls of different sizes from various heights.
The Learning: Students can see how the white “sub-surface” is ejected outward, creating “rays.” Explore how changing the height, or the size of the ball, changes the size of the crater that’s formed.
Rocket Science: SLS Straw Rockets
The Space Launch System (SLS) is the most powerful rocket ever built. Students can mimic the “launch” with simple materials.
The Activity: Give students a straw and a slightly wider paper tube (sealed at one end) that fits over the straw. When they blow into the straw, the “rocket” launches.
The Challenge: Can they design “fins” from scrap paper to make the rocket fly straighter? This introduces basic aerodynamics and the concept of thrust.
How fast? How far?
The round trip covers roughly 700,000 miles. The mission lasts ten days. That is a straightforward calculation for upper KS2, and it leads naturally into comparisons children can make sense of — the distance from London to New York is around 3,500 miles, for instance.
As a class, make a model of the Earth and the moon to scale. In diagrams we always put the moon close to the Earth, but in reality they’re are quite a way apart. Ask the class to guess where the moon would be if the Earth was the size of a basketball. In actual fact the moon would be a tennis ball about 7 meters away (about 30 Earth diameters away). Measure this out!
Phases of the Moon
If you start a Moon observation diary with your class this week, you can track the phases throughout the mission and beyond. This fits directly into the KS2 programme of study, and the timing gives it a bit of added relevance. Use this model to explain how we see the moon phases. Explore it with a torch and a football.
Who goes to space?
A short research task on the Artemis II crew works well as a writing or discussion activity. What training do astronauts do? What skills and qualities does NASA look for? Why does the crew include people from different countries? This can cross over into PSHE without straying too far from the science.
The Activity: Create “Astronaut Fact Files.” Assign small groups to research Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen.
The Discussion: Focus on their backgrounds. Christina Koch was an electrical engineer; Victor Glover was a test pilot. This shows students that there are many paths to NASA or the ESA.
Why not just land?
This is a good discussion question for older primary pupils. Artemis II is explicitly a test flight — so what are they testing, and why does it matter? Children often assume the difficult part is getting to the Moon at all, but keeping people alive and in communication over a ten-day deep space mission is where much of the complexity lies.
Where to follow the mission
NASA is streaming coverage on its YouTube channel and via NASA+ throughout the mission. There is also a daily mission blog on the NASA website if you want to follow specific milestones — the translunar injection burn, the lunar flyby and the return to Earth are the main events.
The mission is due to return to Earth around 11 April. That gives you a week or so to run activities that connect to something happening in real time. This is in the school holidays in the UK, so you could schedule something for the first week back when Artemis has returned to Earth.
The post Artemis II – Primary Science Classroom Ideas appeared first on Danny Nics Science Fix. Written by Danny Nicholson