Middle School

• Astronomy & Space
• Engineering & Technology
• Expedition / Survival

Why it works: New Horizons has a destination, a nine-and-a-half-year journey, strict engineering limits, and a once-only encounter with Pluto. Following the team as they build the spacecraft and interpret its images turns planetary geology and remote exploration into the unfolding discoveries of a mission.

• General / Multiple Sciences
• Expedition / Survival

Why it works: In the Field with National Geographic tells the organization's 135-year story through the explorers, scientists, educators, photographers, and innovations that carried questions from Everest to microscopes, deep seas, and space. The changing people and tools make multidisciplinary discovery an expedition history rather than an encyclopedia of subjects.

• Earth Science
• Life Science
• Comics / Graphic Narrative

Why it works: Science Comics: Dinosaurs follows a century and a half of fossil hunters as discoveries repeatedly change the dinosaurs people draw and describe. The history becomes an evidence mystery in which feathers, bones, field finds, and competing interpretations revise the scientific picture.

• Astronomy & Space
• Earth Science
• Comics / Graphic Narrative

Why it works: Science Comics: Solar System sends Sara, Jill, and their space-faring pets on a quest past Venus, Saturn, the Sun, and other neighbors. Acid clouds, icy rings, giant storms, and the solar system's dusty origin turn each stop into a distinct planetary environment rather than a decorative backdrop.

• Life Science
• Comics / Graphic Narrative

Why it works: Science Comics: Dogs sends a friendly mutt after his lost ball while he investigates dogs' wolf ancestry, breed differences, and intelligence. His personal quest gives genetics, evolution, and behavior a comic character arc from predator origins to human companion.

• Engineering & Technology
• Comics / Graphic Narrative

Why it works: Science Comics: Robots and Drones gives Pouli, an early mechanical bird, a funny journey from tea-serving automata to factory robots, flying drones, and Mars rovers. His travels reveal how robots sense, follow instructions, move, and change when people design them for different jobs.