!["Aliens"-by-[Søren]-is-licensed-under-CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0.](https://dnhna1f30c1xr.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/373470957_23bb4374ae.jpg)
GUEST BLOGGER KATHRYN HULICK
The year is 2033 and an alien spacecraft has arrived on Earth. An investigator known only as Polaris has compiled THE UFO FILES, a report into every aspect of the spaceship and the beings that built it. This new book aimed at readers in upper elementary and middle school. Using a graphic-novel style, the book explores how the arrival of an alien spaceship on planet Earth might impact humanity. It combines a science fiction story with nonfiction sidebars about artificial intelligence, rocket science, biology, and more.
In THE UFO FILES, readers encounter two kinds of aliens, robots called BugBots and animals called Blues. Readers discover how the technology of the BugBots work, as well as how the Blues evolved and how their bodies work. So even though these are imaginary beings, the science behind them is plausible. The activity below is just one of four included in a free Educator Guide for THE UFO FILES.
Activity: invent an alien
In this activity, students will invent their own aliens! They could even choose to use generative AI to help expand and add to their own creative ideas. They should aim to make their creations plausible by thinking about how they move, get energy, and more.
Prompts
Ask students to consider the following thought prompts or download the worksheet and distribute:
- Choose living alien beings or alien robots (or a combo of the two!)
- Describe the world they come from. Is their planet hot or cold? Big or small? Or maybe they live on spaceships.
- How do they move around? (Feet? Wings? Wheels?)
- What senses do they have? (Sight? Hearing? Special alien senses?)
- How do they get energy?
- How do they communicate?
- What sorts of things are important in their culture? (Family? Scientific discovery? Strength or power?)
Design and write
On the back of the worksheet, students should draw a picture of the alien and label its parts. If they would like another source of inspiration, students could put a description of the alien into Dall-E or another AI generator to see what it comes up with.
Students should write a short story about the alien arriving on Earth. They should include what happens after it arrives and why it came. Students should write the first draft independently.
Students can now try pasting the draft into ChatGPT, Claude, or another generative AI tool, adding the prompt: “I’m a student in middle school and I wrote this story. Do you have any ideas on how I could revise or expand it?” They should use the AI’s responses to work on a second draft.
Additional resources
Check out more activities in the free Educator Guide for THE UFO FILES.
Featured image credit: “Aliens” by [Søren] is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Kathryn Hulick is a freelance journalist and author of numerous books for young people or anyone who is curious. Her new book THE UFO FILES: Notes on an Alien Encounter (Quarto, 2025) combines a sci-fi story about the arrival of an alien spacecraft with scientific explanations of the marvels found on board. Her previous two books, Welcome To The Future (Quarto, 2021) and Strange But True (Quarto, 2019) are both nonfiction for young readers. She also writes news and features for Science News, Science News Explores, and Front Vision, a Chinese-language science magazine. Her Substack is called Wow! Tech & Nature. She enjoys hiking with her family and dog, painting, reading, and growing unusual orchids. Follow her work on Substack: https://kathrynhulick.substack.com/
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