Two children act as the Moon and the Earth. By holding hands and spinning around they mimic the tidal locking of the Moon. They note that the Moon always keeps the same face towards Earth.
In this 30 to 45 minute activity, children (in teams of 4-5) experiment to create craters and learn about the landscape of the moon. The children make observations on how the size and mass, direction, and velocity of the projectile impacts the size and shape of the crater.
During the activity, students build a star lantern, allowing them to learn that constellations were created by people and are composed of stars. Students learn how to recognise some constellations.
In this activity, students discuss the notion of time and how time can be measured. They learn that a long time ago, people used different tools to measure time. Students build and use a sundial and discover that a long time ago, it was much more difficult to accurately tell the time than it is today.
In this activity, students discuss the notion of time and how time can be measured. They learn that a long time ago, people used different tools to measure time. Students build and use a sundial and discover that a long time ago, it was much more difficult to accurately tell the time than it is today.
The Sun moves across the sky at an approximately constant rate because of the rotation of the Earth. By measuring how fast the Sun moves, you can work out how big the Sun appears in the sky. All you need are some household items and about 30 minutes on a sunny day.
Converting a visual to a tactile experience, this activity lets visually impaired students learn about and explore some of the characteristics of our home planet, the Earth.
Converting the visual to tactile experience, this activity let visually impaired students to learn and explore about our star, Sun, and its main characteristics.
Converting a visual experience to a tactile one, this activity lets visually impaired students learn and explore our Moon and its characteristics.
Students will experimentally learn how meteoroids are formed. They will melt a comet, learning about its composition, and break apart asteroids. The students learn the differences between meteoroids, meteors and meteorites and how the impact of asteroids/meteoroids can affect life on Earth.
Many children may have heard of black holes and already have the understanding that they are ‘bottomless wells’. If something falls into a black hole, it is impossible for it to escape—even light cannot escape and is swallowed. The lack of light is how black holes get their name. These objects are mysterious and interesting, but they are not easy to explain. This activity will allow children to visualize, and therefore help them decompose, the concepts of space-time and gravity, which are integral to understanding these appealing objects.
This lesson unit provides an insight into the navigational methods of the Bronze Age Mediterranean peoples. The students explore the link between history and astronomical knowledge. Besides an overview of ancient seafaring in the Mediterranean, the students use activities to explore early navigational skills using the stars and constellations and their apparent nightly movement across the sky. In the course of the activities, they become familiar with the stellar constellations and how they are distributed across the northern and southern sky.
Description:
Build a model of the Earth, with its spin-axis, and a lamp as the Sun to demonstrate the concept of seasons.
Goals
--Understanding why we have seasons and the cause of seasonal variation in temperature.
--Learning about how the Earth rotates on a tilted axis compared to its orbit around the Sun.
Learning Objectives
--Students learn about seasons by building a model of the Earth and the Sun, and investigating how sunlight hits the Northern and Southern Hemispheres during different seasons.
--Students explain that the same amount of light hitting the ground heats up a small area more than a large area
--Students show that the angle at which the sunlight hits the Earth influences how much the sunlight heats up the Earth.
Students demonstrate that the angle at which the sunlight hits the Earth is related to the tilt of the Earth’s rotational axis compared to the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
The students will paint and arrange spheres to form a model of the solar system. They will first make models using the plastic spheres of different sizes. Then they will make similar models using clay, cotton, etc., and organize them in the right order from the Sun.
This activity is based on a reduced-scale model of the Solar System built on a map of a city students are familiar with. This provides them with an understanding of the great distances between the different bodies of the Solar System and their relative size. Students will investigate the characteristics that are required from these bodies to build a scale model using common objects.
What is a star and what shape is it? Students explore both artistic and scientific representations of stars, learn that stars are like the sun but much further away and make their own star hat.
Have you ever wondered what happens to the different stars in the night sky as they get older? The Star in a Box application lets you explore the life cycle of stars. It animates stars with different starting masses as they change during their lives. Some stars live fast-paced, dramatic lives; others change very little for billions of years. The app visualises the changes in mass, size, brightness and temperature for all these different stages.
Have you ever wondered what happens to the different stars in the night sky as they get older? The Star in a Box application lets you explore the life cycle of stars. It animates stars with different starting masses as they change during their lives. Some stars live fast-paced, dramatic lives; others change very little for billions of years. The app visualises the changes in mass, size, brightness and temperature for all these different stages.
Street lights of the same type will look brighter when they are close to you, and less bright when they are farther away. The same applies to astronomical objects: a given star will look brighter to a nearby observer than to an observer far away. In both cases, the difference in brightness can be used to deduce the relative distances of suitable objects. Standard candles, objects of constant intrinsic brightness or whose intrinsic brightness can be determined by careful measurements, are a key tool for astronomical distance determination. In this exploration, you will explore standard candles (and also effects that complicate distance measurements) in a simple everyday setting, namely that of street lights, using a digital camera and freely available software.
Students build a model of the Sun-Earth-Moon system, exploring how the Moon revolves around the Earth, and the Earth around the Sun. Students play a memory game and learn some characteristics about the three objects.