1

Astrobiology Short Course

Unit 1a: What Is Life?
Have you ever really sat back and wondered, "What makes me alive?" Why do we think of
something as peaceful as a rose bush as living but something as violent and active as our sun as
non-living? Scientists have clear, concise definitions for many things, but scientists still argue
about what living really means. Is it possible to come up with some simple tests or rules that let
us know for sure if something is a living thing?

"Living things grow" is a common idea. Sure — but so do crystals and volcanoes, and we don't
usually think of them as alive. Also, some living things like bacteria stay about the same size
their whole lives. "Living things move" isn't that great of an idea either. Mushrooms, lichens, and
most plants pretty much stay put. We might do better with something like "living things eat." All
living things seem to need energy, which they get from the environment — sometimes as food,
though plants can get their energy directly from sunlight. Because there are so many ways of
eating we often say that living things exchange energy with their environment.

Also, all living things we know about can reproduce, that is, make copies of themselves in some
manner. We also say they contain a genetic code they can pass on, which is like a "blueprint" for
building new life. The amazing molecule called DNA can store so much information that this
"blueprint" is placed in every cell of our bodies. It's the reason that a giant sequoia tree can grow
from a tiny seed! While DNA seems to be the blueprint for life on our planet, there may be other
ways of storing and passing on information between generations. Maybe somewhere there are
aliens that have an even better way of storing information!

All life that we know of is based on cells. Cells are small (microscopic) units surrounded by a
membrane and having specialized functions. Again, there might be life somewhere in the
universe that isn't cell-based, but we haven't found it yet! Tiny, microscopic cells are just the
right size to exchange fluids and nutrients with the environment. Bacteria are well-suited to
being one cell in size, but other organisms use cooperating sets of cells (tissues and organs) to
perform more complex and specialized functions. And all of this complexity — the instructions
to grow a heart, lungs, liver, skin, bone structure — is contained in the DNA in every cell of our
body!

Life is amazing. Every time we think we have it "figured out" we discover something new. We
once thought life could not exist without oxygen and sunlight. We thought it could only exist in a
very narrow range of temperature and acidity, and that there was no way life could survive for
more than a few seconds in outer space. It turns out we were wrong! We'll talk next about
"extremophiles" — organisms we've discovered that can live and thrive in environments that
would kill most plants and animals instantly.
 2

Sidebar: Think Like a Scientist

When scientists try to define a term such as "life" or "living" they want a very precise definition.
They wouldn't be satisfied with a definition that says "most living things act like this." Scientists
want to define the necessary and sufficient requirements for life.

A requirement sufficient for life means we know it can be alive.

For example, something made of cells that reproduces and interacts with its environment is
sufficient to define it as "alive." But is being made of cells necessary for life? Could there be
something alive, somewhere, that isn't made of cells? Could a computer program be "alive" if it
can adapt to its environment and reproduce itself?

These are hard questions. Part of a scientist's job is to clarify language, and give us good, precise,
trustworthy definitions that are reliable.

This controversy continues today. A central dogma in science is that life is dependent on water.
Water is the universal solvent in which energy can flow from one organism to another and from
non-living to living matter. In fact, to date, all life is based on water. However, as new
information was sent from the Cassini-Huygens mission in 2010, a new theory began to circulate
about the potential for life in liquid solvents other than water.

The chemical signatures on the atmosphere and on the surface of Titan suggested alternative and
unusual chemistry that sparked ideas of possible life on this orange moon of Saturn. Titan has a
thick atmosphere and liquid methane lakes. This result makes Titan the only place in our solar
system beyond Earth known to have liquid on its surface.

Activity: Take a few moments and write down your definition of life. This might take a few
sentences. Save your definition. Later on in this course, we'll explore some living and non-living
things, and you can see how good your definition is at distinguishing between the two!

Activity: Ten Living Things, Part 1

Without thinking about it too much, make a list of TEN LIVING THINGS on a piece of paper.

When you are done, go to Part 2 of the Ten Living Things activity to answer some questions.

Activity: Ten Living Things, Part 2

Now, review your list of TEN LIVING THINGS and answer the following questions.
 3

1. Did you enter any PLANTS? That is, complex living things that get their energy directly
from the sun?
2. Did you enter any organisms that are TOO SMALL to see with the naked eye (i.e.
microscopic organisms)?
3. Did you enter any organisms that could live in Antarctica, or any place on Earth that is
frozen nearly all year long?
4. Did you enter any organisms that live underwater in ocean environments?
5. Did you enter any parasites, that is, organisms that depend entirely on another organism
for survival?
6. Did you enter any pure carnivores, organisms that eat nothing but meat?
7. Did you include human beings in your list?

There's a lot of diversity in life! Often we forget how many different types of life there are,
because much of it is so different from us, including things too small to see. Check your list
again to see if you entered any NON-LIVING things. Common non-living things that students
often confuse with life include: water, sunlight, wind, fire, smoke, clouds, machines (including
robots), or anything else that moves. Watch for these misconceptions!

Unit 1a: Assessment

1. Which of these is the best evidence that something is alive?
it moves
it grows
it reproduces
it changes color

2. Which of these is NOT good evidence for something being alive?

it reproduces
it gives off odors
it has a genetic code
it's made of cells

3. All living things exchange energy with their environment in some way.
True
False
 4

4. The complete "blueprint" of all the information needed to rebuild your body is contained:
in specific places scattered throughout your body
in the cells of your brain
in your sperm/egg cells only
in nearly every cell of your body

5. When many cells cooperate, they form ________ and organs.

organelles
tissues
skin
proteins

Unit 1b: What are Extremophiles?

By the 1960s, we thought we had the necessary conditions for life pretty much figured out.
Based on what we knew then, life had to have water, oxygen, and sunlight available. Living
things could survive freezing temperatures, but only for a little while; and no living thing could
survive boiling temperatures. Life could exist in salt water, but not water that was TOO salty.
And life could not exist in highly acid environments (below pH 6) or highly alkaline
environments (above pH 9). The idea of anything surviving in outer space was just silly. Every
living thing had to carefully protect its DNA; if the cell’s nucleus was destroyed, the information
in the DNA was gone forever. We certainly hadn’t found all living things, but we knew where to
look, and where we could safely assume no life could exist.

We were dead wrong.

Even before the 1960s, there were some clues that we might have underestimated life. In the
early 1900s we depended on salt to preserve codfish — after all, no bacteria could live in a
nearly pure salt environment. But much to the fishing industry’s distress, salt cod was spoiling.
Somehow, bacteria were surviving and even thriving in the salt. And in the 1940s, acid-loving
microbes were discovered in highly acid mine drainage sites like Iron Mountain in California.
But it wasn’t until Thomas Brock discovered bacteria living in Yellowstone’s boiling-hot springs
and geysers in the 1960s that we realized we had to totally rethink what life was, and where it
could exist.

Perhaps the most amazing revelation of all came in 1977, when undersea explorers Jack Corliss
and Robert Ballard discovered “black smokers” — incredibly hot thermal vents — at the bottom
 5

of the Atlantic Ocean. Here in the total darkness, under incredible pressure, in this boiling, toxic,
deadly brew, they found life. Not just a little bit of life, but an entire rich and beautiful
ecosystem. Take a few moments to watch Ballard talk about that day of discovery; it was the day
that biology turned upside down, and all our biology textbooks had to be scheduled for a rewrite.

Life is a lot tougher than we thought. Now we know that there are many forms of life that thrive
in environments that we think of as extreme — salty, acid or alkaline, very hot or cold,
poisonous, high or low pressure, and even radioactive. They have classifying names based on
what environment they “love,” such as halophiles (salt-lovers), thermophiles (heat-lovers),
acidophiles (acid-lovers) and so on. Most of them are single-celled organisms, but some are
complex organisms like fish or worms. We’ve discovered creatures that can survive having their
cell’s nucleus destroyed by radiation, and are somehow able to reassemble their DNA from
shreds and scraps. We’ve discovered that certain insects can survive the vacuum of outer space
for days. We’ve had to broaden our thinking, and our definition of life, to include the amazing
diversity of the extremophiles.

Sidebar: Think Like a Scientist

Scientists are often wrong -- some would say, always wrong. The scientific goal is complete
understanding, but we get there step by step. We use our best theories to predict and explain
what we see, and when we find that something doesn't work, we change or revise the theory -- or
sometimes throw it out altogether!

Some people get angry or disillusioned with scientists because they "keep changing their story."
Think about this, though: if scientists didn't change their story, we'd still imagine the Earth as flat
and treat blood diseases with leeches! It's the ability to detect that you're wrong and revise your
theories that makes science so powerful.

Think about the photo at right, which is of

Yellowstone National Park in winter 2010.
The algae growing in this hot spring channel
thrive at a pH between 1-4 (equivalent to
battery acid), with an upper temperature of
56 degrees C (133 degrees F). Fascinating!
But how does it do it?

That is what this scientist wants to learn. At

each step of discovery, an idea or theory is
put forth, and a prediction is made.
Experiments are designed to test whether
the theory can be proven false.
 6

Sidebar: Timeline of 20th Century

Extremophile Discoveries
1920s - Salt cod spoilage mystery (halophiles)
1940s - Iron Mountain mine drainage mystery (acidophiles)
1956 - A. W. Anderson discovers D. Radiodurans (radiation resistant bacteria)
1960 - Takahara isolates alkaliphiles from indigo fermentation
1961 - Imre Friedmann discovers cryptoendoliths in desert rocks
1966 - Thomas Brock discovers Yellowstone hot springs thermophiles
1974 - R. D. MacElroy coins the term "Extremophiles."
1976 - TAQ Polymerase isolated, would revolutionize DNA studies
1977 - Carl Woese identifies Archaea
1977 - Robert Ballard discovers Atlantic thermal vent life
1981 - Hyperthermophiles in Iceland discovered by Zillig/Stetter
1993 - Tommy Phelps finds 100+million year old endoliths in oil deposit
1996 - First Archea genome sequenced
1997 - Methane ice worms discovered on Mexico sea floor

Sidebar: Think Like an Alien

On planet Xortus, the ninth planet from the star XerXerNix-5, lives a strange race of methane-
breathing, acetone-drinking aliens called the Xorts. The average surface temperature on their
planet is minus 80oC (-112oF), so liquid water would only show up in their laboratories. In fact,
water is considered a deadly poison to Xorts. All life on planet Xortus is based on methane,
which they consider the fundamental chemical of life. (By the way, based on recent discoveries
of possible life signatures on Saturn's methane-rich moon Titan, this may not be too far-fetched!)

A Xort scientist has recently pointed its telescopes and sensitive instruments directly at our star,
and noticed our planetary system including Earth. Would this scientist guess that life exists on
our planet? If so, can you think of any clues the scientist might look for? Would we be
considered "extremophiles" by this scientist?

Activity: Extremophile Matching Game

Match the extremophile to the extreme! See if you can guess, based on the name, where these
kinds of extremophiles might call "home."
 7

Unit 1b: Assessment

1. The discovery that life can exist in extremes of temperature, saltiness, acidity, and pressure
was made:
in the Middle Ages
around the time of Darwin
in the mid-1900s
only in the last decade

2. No living creature can survive extreme damage to its DNA.

True
False
 8

3. Corliss and Ballard discovered lifeforms at the bottom of the Atlantic near volcanic vents
called:
hot springs
lava tubes
gushers
black smokers

4. An organism that loves salty environments would be called a halophile.

True
False

5. Thomas Brock discovered extremophile bacteria in the hot springs at:

Yellowstone
Salt Lake
Hot Springs, Georgia
Reykjavik, Iceland

Unit 1c: Where are Extremophiles Found?

When we talk about life in extreme environments, you might think these life forms are rare,
because we think of extreme things as being uncommon. Remember, though, what we call
extreme just means places where we couldn’t live. Humans (and most plants and animals) only
thrive in a narrow range of temperature, pressure, salinity and pH. There are a lot more extreme
environments than one would think. In fact, extremophiles are present all around us. Most of
them are single-celled organisms and many are in the domain Archaea. Archaea are similar in
appearance to bacteria, but they have many differences in their DNA. In fact, scientists now
believe that Archaea are the oldest life-forms on the planet – no surprise really, since the cooling
Earth would have been a very extreme environment. So, if you wanted to find some
extremophiles, where would you look?

One place might be under your feet. Endoliths are organisms that can live and thrive in rock,
feeding on minerals, and they have been found over a mile deep in the earth’s crust. Another
place to look might be inside the nearest cow. You may have heard that cows “fart and burp”
methane gas, but you might not know that there are organisms that love those methane-rich
environments. Methanogens are organisms that produce methane gas and are commonly found
in cow’s intestines, as well as in swamps and oil deposits.
 9

Put on your fur parka and head to the frozen Arctic wasteland, or south to the equally frigid
Antarctic ice sheet, and you might think you’d be alone. But in the pressurized ice here are tiny
cracks filled with salt water, and – you guessed it – living things. Psychrophiles or cryophiles
are the names given to “cold-loving” organisms, many having cells filled with “antifreeze”
solutions similar to what you might put in your car’s radiator. You’ll even find cryophilic fish
swimming underneath the permanently frozen sea ice.

You might want to warm up now with a trip to a nice hot spring. Yellowstone has plenty, at
temperatures upwards of 88°C (190°F). That might give you and me third-degree burns, but
thermophiles are thriving in this environment, feeding off ammonia and sulfur. If you want the
REALLY hot springs, you might take a submarine journey down to the pitch-dark bottom of the
ocean, where “black smokers” vent sulfur-rich liquids at over 150°C (300°F). Not only will you
find Archaea living in these vents, but huge, thriving ecosystems with tubeworms and crab-like
creatures are built around them. Even without sunlight, life is able to thrive using a process
called chemosynthesis (like photosynthesis, but based on chemical energy rather than sunlight).
You and I use chemosynthesis, too — we don't need sunlight directly — but we depend
absolutely on photosynthesis in plants for all our food. We never imagined that a whole ecology
could be built without a single ray of sunlight.

Now if you're feeling the need to dry off, you could head out to the barren salt flats around Salt
Lake City or San Francisco Bay. Here, the water at lake's edge is so salty that it is crystallizing.
But what are all those amazing colors? Sure enough, we're looking at life again. Halophiles, salt-
loving organisms, still need water to live, but can tolerate large amounts of salt mixed in.

Is there anywhere we can travel where we DON'T find life? Well, since this is about
ASTRObiology, I guess we could put on a space suit and take a quick trip into outer space! Let's
look at three places of interest in our own solar system: Titan, Europa, and Mars.

Titan is the largest moon orbiting Saturn. It is very, very cold — about -178°C (-288°F) — but it
actually has lakes and oceans on its surface. These are made of liquid methane, not water. Titan
also has an atmosphere, mainly nitrogen and methane gas. Now that we know there are methane-
loving extremophiles, it opens the possibility that we could someday find life on Titan. In fact,
some recent discoveries from NASA's Cassini probe are causing excitement about this
mysterious moon.

Europa is not the largest of Jupiter's moons — that honor belongs to Ganymede — but it may be
the most interesting, at least to astrobiologists. One reason is that recent probes have shown
strong evidence of vast oceans of liquid water just underneath the icy surface of this moon. Yes,
it's cold, and yes, it's dark. But that hasn't stopped life at the bottom of the Atlantic. Could we
find life deep within Europa's oceans? Time will tell…

Mars has certainly caused a lot of excitement in recent years. Its relatively close orbit has
allowed us to send robotic "rovers" to the surface, enabling scientists to look much more closely
for signs of life. So far, there's no convincing evidence. BUT we did find confirmation of water
ice near the Martian surface, and the soil of Mars is fertile and nutrient-rich. The surface features
of Mars strongly suggest that this planet may have once had oceans, lakes and rivers. Was there
 10

life on Mars at that distant time? Could it even be there today, lurking under the surface? We
don't know, but rest assured we'll be sending more robots, and maybe even people, to this
tantalizingly close planet.

Sidebar: Additional Resources

World Map of Extreme Environments

Slide Show of Extremophiles: The World’s Weirdest Life

How Extremophiles Work

Activity: Extreme Venn

Drag three of the environmental conditions in the upper left onto each of the three colored
intersecting circles.

In the blanks at the bottom, type a name for the environment at each of the intersections. For
example, you might label the intersection of "Dark" and "Cold" as "Siberian Winter," and the
intersection of all three as "My Refrigerator." When you are done, hit submit to see your
environments on the Venn diagram. You can hit reset to start over.

Having trouble? Click on hints at the bottom, or use the Internet to help find "real" environments
like this! Do a little more research on extremophiles -- are there any known to exist in your
"overlap" environments?
 11

Unit 1c: Assessment

1. Which statement is true of extreme environments?
they are more common than environments we'd call "normal".
they are very rare in nature
they are hostile to all life
they hold no interest for life scientists

2. Organisms that thrive inside rock itself are called:

halophiles
endoliths
cryophiles
lithophiles
 12

3. Organisms that produce methane-rich environments (found in swamps and cow intestines!) are
called:
methoglans
methanocides
methanophiles
methanogens

4. Without light, organisms can't perform photosynthesis, so living communities cannot form.
True
False

5. All extremophiles are single-celled organisms.

True
False

Unit 1d: What Can Extremophiles Teach Us?

Biologists get excited about the discovery of ANY new living things, but extremophiles have
caused more excitement, and more radical changes in science, than any other forms of life. Why?
After all, most extremophiles are single-celled creatures, measly microbes. What is it that makes
them so fascinating to scientists?

The short answer is DNA. Many single-celled extremophiles are in the domain Archaea. The
DNA of Archaea is quite different from common bacteria. Analyzing DNA is rather like looking
at ancient texts written in an alphabet, and reading the “alphabet” of Archaea is like reading an
ancient Phoenician alphabet – simpler in many ways, with strong evidence that it was an older
form of life. Archaea, as its name suggests, is very old - perhaps as old as the first bacteria, but
certainly much older than even the simplest multi-celled organisms. As we find out more about
Archaea, we are gaining insights into how life may have begun on our planet – and perhaps how
life might begin on other planets.

In addition to what extremophiles are teaching us about the origins of life, we’re also learning of
practical applications for medicine and genetics. For example, Yellowstone’s famous
extremophile bacterium Thermus aquaticus was found to produce an enzyme called Taq
polymerase, which can quickly make millions of copies of DNA molecules at temperatures
above normal life conditions. It turns out this is exactly what was needed in the laboratory to
copy DNA for research. Around 1983, a technique called PCR (polymerase chain reaction)
 13

was developed using this enzyme to copy DNA in a test tube. It is now used in DNA
“fingerprinting” for paternity and forensics, genetic medicine, and thousands of other uses.

Pioneer genetics researcher Craig Venter, along with many other research teams, are trying to
find ways to construct new lifeforms that could, for example, turn excess carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere into fuels, or clean up oil spills, or selectively attack cancer cells. Laboratory gene-
splicing techniques were able to build short sections of DNA, but not the tremendously long
sequences needed by a "real" organism. Again, extremophiles came to the rescue! An
extremophile bacterium called Deinococcus radiodurans was found to be able to reconstruct its
DNA after having it “shredded” into thousands of fragments. Venter was able to harness this
amazing ability and splice together thousands of smaller DNA fragments, producing the first true
“artificial lifeform." Gaining control over these basic mechanisms of life, even though it has
risks and ethical issues, could open up vast new possibilities in energy and medicine.

Does life exist elsewhere in the universe? More and more scientists are convinced that we’ll soon
find the answer to be YES. It's not likely to be "little green men" from Mars, but we may well
find single-celled lifeforms somewhere other than Earth. Part of the reason is that our discovery
of extremophiles broadens the range of conditions where we know life can exist. We now know
that life can exist without oxygen, without sunlight, and perhaps even without liquid water. Even
complex, multicellular organisms have been found to be amazingly hardy. During a 2007 NASA
mission, tiny animals called Tardigrades, or “water bears,” were found to be able to survive
after ten days in the vacuum of outer space. They can also survive being dried out for decades,
cooked past boiling, zapped by normally lethal radiation, or squeezed at six thousand times air
pressure. Now that’s tough!

Sidebar: Archaea or Archaeabacteria?

The "third domain" of life was discovered in the 1970's by biologist Carl Woese. He originally
thought these organisms were a subclass of bacteria -- after all, they were single-celled and didn't
have a nucleus, making them prokaryotes, just like bacteria. So he came up with the division of
bacteria into eubacteria and archaeabacteria, which is what we still find in many life science
textbooks.

However, when classifying organisms, it's not just what you look like that counts; it's what's in
your DNA. Woese eventually decided that the DNA of this new "bacteria" was so radically
different that it was not bacteria at all, but an entirely new domain of life.

We now recognize three "Domains" of life -- Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukaryota. The
“Kingdoms” -- plants, animals, protists, etc. -- fall under these Domains, mostly under
Eukaryota. Bacteria and Archaea are the prokaryotes, cells without a nucleus.

The domain Eukaryota, or eukaryotes, all have cells with their DNA contained in a nucleus.
Some eukaryotes, such as the amoeba and paramecium, are single-celled; but many more are
multi-celled, including plants, fish, insects and mammals. In fact, without a good microscope, it's
unlikely that we'd know anything other than multicellular eukaryotes!
 14

Activity: Space Frankenstein

We're looking for lifeforms on Mars, Europa, and Titan, and you're in charge of a top-secret
genetic engineering project to try to "simulate" life that might be able to survive on these planets.
Our theory is that if we can create a "Frankenstein" extremophile that could survive in these
conditions, we can learn what clues to look for as we study these planets and moons for traces of
life.

Your job is to try to combine genes from two different organisms to create a new organism -- one
that "has what it takes" to survive in these extreme environments! We've described what we
know of the three environments below, and given you a list of extremophiles to choose from.
Which ones would you pair up for each environment?
 15

Unit 1d: Assessment

1. What quality might make extremophiles so interesting to scientists?
they have different DNA
they have remarkably different survival mechanisms
they can provide "raw material" for new inventions
all of the above
 16

2. The study of extremophiles led to a whole new "Domain" being added to the base of the tree
of life. This domain is called:
Extrema
Bacteria
Archaea
Animalia

3. What quality made Deinococcus radiodurans so interesting to artificial life research?

it produced TAQ polymerase
it could resist extreme heat
it could reassemble its own DNA from scraps
it glowed under UV light

4. TAQ polymerase from hot springs bacteria is used in the ___ process for DNA analysis and
fingerprinting.
TAQ
MMR
PCR
NMR

5. Tardigrades, shown to be able to survive in outer space, are single-celled creatures.

True
False

Unit 1: Resources
NASA - What is Life?
Q&A Website from NASA

Exploratorium: Origins
Informational website from NSF

Extreme Ecosystems
Informational Website from NASA
 17

Windows to the Universe - What is Life

Informational Website from the National Earth Science Teachers Association.

Windows to the Universe - Extreme Environments

Informational Website from the National Earth Science Teachers Association.

NASA Astrobiology website

NASA web page / news blog

Astronomycast Podcast - Astrobiology

Astronomy Cast Podcast with transcript.

What is Life - Space.com - A New Theory

Informational website from space.com

NOVA - Cave Extremophiles

Interview with researcher from NOVA

X-treme Microbes (NSF)

Interactive Website from NSF.

Unit 1: Lesson Plans and Activities

Defining the Habitable Zone
Grades 5-8. In this activity, students explore the orbital characteristics a planetary home needs to
support Earth-like life forms. Lesson plan from NASA MSU-Bozeman CERES project.

Who Can Live Here? Life in Extreme Environments

Grades 5-8. Students explore the limits of life on Earth and examine the possibility of life on
other words. Lesson plan from NASA MSU-Bozeman CERES project.

The Rare Earth - How Rare is Earth-Like Life?

Grades 9-12. How special are the circumstances that have allowed complex life, like animals and
plants, to develop on Earth? In this activity students systematically investigate the time frame for
complex life to develop on Earth. Lesson plan from NASA MSU-Bozeman CERES project.

Lotto or Life - What are the Chances?

Grades 6-9. A NASA Goddard Space Flight Center lesson plan that encourages students to
compare the likelihood of intelligent life existing elsewhere in the Universe and winning the
lottery.

Microbial Zoo
Grades 9-12. In this activity, students will explore the extreme conditions in which life is known
to exist in on our own planet, then examine similar environments on other planets in our solar
system. Lesson plan from NASA MSU-Bozeman CERES project.
 18

NASA Astro-Venture
Grades 5-8. Interactive, multimedia Web environment where students role-play NASA
occupations, this Astro-Venture is a Biology Training Module in which students change the
biological features of Earth and observe the effects. Students will also explore how these features
work together to help make a planet habitable to humans.

Astrobiology in Your Classroom (NASA)

Grades 5-8. This Educator Guide is full of hands on activities that lay the conceptual groundwork
for understanding questions fundamental to the field of astrobiology. These activities enable
students to examine the nature of life, what it requires, its limits, and where it might be found.
Created by Cornell University Department of Astrobiology.

TERC Astrobiology Curriculum

Grades 6-12. This is a middle and high school curriculum developed by TERC that teachers must
pay to purchase. However, free sample activities on topics such as the history of life on Earth
and habitability are available.