If you’ve ever played sports, you know that the goal is to win. But what if you played a game that had no object—no end goal? Most likely, you’d be completely lost, wouldn’t you? Knowing what you want to accomplish can help you win games and sporting events. It can help you know what to include in a summary as well.

You can put your thesis to good use before you begin writing your report: Consider it your guide for selecting the details that will appear in each source summary. Your thesis should include your claim and three or four ideas that support your claim. When you summarize sources, you can use this information to write down only the most relevant points—the ones that back up your thesis.

Click the button below to read the blog post “Could Future Homes on the Moon and Mars Be Made of Fungi?” which appears on NASA's website.

When you have read the blog post carefully, summarize the sections that deal with this thesis statement:

Once you’ve written your own summary, compare it to the example below. Although your response will be worded differently, you should include the same information from the source.

Show Me

One factor holding back space explorers from setting up a human habitat on the Moon is the problem of transport. Conventional building materials are heavy and bulky—too difficult to bring along when every ounce of rocket fuel is needed for the journey.

NASA researchers are exploring ways to make lightweight habitats that are grown on site by adding water to dormant fungi. The three-layer dome proposed by NASA consists of an outer layer of frozen water, a middle layer of special bacteria that photosynthesize food, and the inner layer of mycelia, the fibers that make up the bulk of fungi.

This same technology could be used on Earth to grow sustainable and affordable housing and even household furnishings.