Animation 1: Grounded - Story: Eagle, Raven, Hawk and Robyn wait outside Headmaster Crane's office to be brought in before him. Clearly, they're all in big trouble. Eagle blames Raven, Raven blames Eagle; even Robyn and Hawk have their own opinions. As they quarrel, we flash back and learn how they got into this mess: the Racers are on a class trip to Venus not far from a creepy old abandoned space station, rumored to be haunted, in orbit of the planet. In a test of bravado, the kids screw up their courage to enter the dark, scary space station. What happens next becomes a matter of opinion and point-of-view: which of them accidentally set events in motion that caused the space station to re-enter Venus's atmosphere and break up? In separate vignettes, we see and hear what transpired from each Space Racer's POV - which couldn't be more different - until Headmaster Crane finally confronts them to deduce the truth. Curriculum Focus: A Team Approach - Collaborating with a team and then sharing what one has learned is often useful. Interstitial 1: "NASM 4- Walk Through Skylab". Animation 2: Here Comes the Sun - Story: Headmaster Crane, insisting that the Sun can rise from the West, makes a bet with a skeptical Vulture. The stakes? The loser of the bet must dress up as a silly mascot for the next Orb-O match and dance in front of the whole academy. Trying to help the headmaster, the Racers travel to different locations on Earth and the Moon, develop hypotheses about sunrises, and finally discover that the direction of the sunrise depends upon the rotation of a planet. So they fly to Venus -- which rotates clockwise -- but since they're not able to land there, cannot confirm their hypothesis. Will they be able to prove that the Sun indeed can rise in the West, and make Vulture dress up at the next Orb-O match? Curriculum Focus: Experimentation - form hypotheses and make predictions while collaborating with a team and then sharing what one has learned. Interstitial 2: "Space Quiz 9 - Sunrise and Sunset". Character Bio: Vulture.
