Alien investigation primary resource

Explore some of the most well-known alien mysteries

This primary resource introduces children to the idea of extraterrestrial life. Discover some of the most well-known alien mysteries. What happened at Area 51? Why is Roswell famous as the site of an alien encounter? What do experts say about these mysteries?

Pupils will learn about how to use and review case studies, and critique evidence in our National Geographic Kids’ Alien investigation primary resource sheet.

The teaching resource can be used in study group tasks centred around investigating and evaluating evidence. It can be used as a printed handout for each pupil to review and annotate, or for display on the interactive whiteboard for class discussion.

Activity: Read the alien investigation case studies. Ask children to identify and highlight key pieces of evidence. In groups, or as a whole class, pupils could discuss the four case studies, and take a vote on what they think, using the boxes provided. As a class, read the additional information from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence institute and discuss whether this changes any of their votes. Pupils could make a table with one column labelled ‘facts’ and the other ‘opinions’, and sort the key information they’ve highlighted into these two categories. Extend more able pupils by asking them to carry out further research into the case studies.

N.B. The following information for mapping the resource documents to the school curriculum is specifically tailored to the English National Curriculum and Scottish Curriculum for Excellence. We are currently working to bring specifically tailored curriculum resource links for our other territories; including South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. If you have any queries about our upcoming curriculum resource links, please email: schools@ngkids.co.uk

This ‘Investigating evidence’ primary resource assists with teaching the following Spoken language English objectives from the National Curriculum:

Pupils should be taught to:

National Curriculum Upper Key Stage 2 English objectives:

Pupils should be taught about:

This Investigating evidence primary resource assists with teaching the following Social studies Early level objectives from the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence:

Scottish Curriculum for Excellence Social studies First level objectives:

Scottish Curriculum for Excellence Social studies Second level objectives:

Scottish Curriculum for Excellence Social studies Third level objectives: