Materials List: E.T. Phone Home:
Fact or Fiction?

Note: The expendable cost for this activity covers an invisible ink pen, five dancing solar-powered flower pots and Reece’s Pieces candy packets for 30 students (and the latter two are optional). The other many non-expendable items—such as tackle boxes, padlocks and black light flashlights (~$45 per group)—are expensive, yet fully reusable to run the activity many times, and many (similar) items you may already have in your classroom or home.

Each group needs:

To share with the entire class:

  • red marker
  • invisible ink pen, such as from a four-pack from Amazon
  • (optional) ~5 solar-powered, dancing flower pots, 1 for each member of the winning team; such as a set of two from Amazon
  • (optional) Reese’s Pieces (peanut butter) candy (1.53-oz) packet, one per student; such as a box of 36 packets from Amazon
  • smart device with QR reader installed, such as a Chromebook
  • computer with internet access and capability to show the class many short online videos
https://www.teachengineering.org/activities/view/unm-2006-et-phone-home-photovoltaics-solar-energy