Learning about the moon has never tasted delicious! Using the popular Oreo cookie as a model, young scientists carve out the cream filling to represent the different phases of the moon.

Why does it look like there is a man on the moon? Why does the moon look different every night? These are the focus questions of a lesson that prompts class members to observe and record the nightly changes of Earth's natural...

Send students on a search for facts about the solar system with this scavenger hunt activity. Whether they are finding out how far the sun is from the earth, or the names of all four gas giants, this resource will engage young...

How much do you really know about our planet? Middle schoolers build up their prior knowledge about Earth, its placement in the solar system, its composition, and important geological vocabulary with an introductory earth science lesson...

Help your class understand the magnitude of the distance between Earth and Mars with an activity that asks small groups to use balloons to create scale models of the Earth, Moon, and Mars. Class members figure out the distances...

If you feel like you're standing still, you're wrong! The Earth is constantly rotating and orbiting under our feet. Demonstrate the Earth's movement within the solar system with a collaborative activity. With a candle or lamp in the...

Explore outer space and decorate your classroom with an astronomy project. Learners create a visual model with the creation of a scaled solar system using different sized balls.

If Earth is modeled by a grapefruit, what planet could be represented by a golf ball? This activity uses everyday and not-so-everyday objects to create a model of the Solar System.

How do you put something as large as the universe in perspective? Use a series of scale experiments. Classmates collaborate around four experiments to examine the scale of the earth-moon system, our solar system, the Milky Way galaxy,...

Finish or launch your unit on the solar system with a jigsaw project covering major celestial concepts such as the Milky Way Galaxy, asteroids, meteors, comets, Earth's moon, and, of course, all the planets. Learners start by...

How is solar energy able to move wind and water to control the climate? Scholars explore the concept of solar energy in the first of 10 activities in the Discover Your Changing World series. They follow instructions to build homemade...

Ever made solar s'mores? Or recreated the solar system using peanuts? Astronomers young and old investigate all things solar using a variety of activities. Explore how the sun works, types of light it emits, and methods of charting the...

Who needs the daylight to simulate a lunar eclipse? Astronomers model the positions of the Sun, Earth, and Moon to explain the necessary conditions for a lunar eclipse. Investigators cut and label a paper plate to represent the Earth and...

Do all lunar eclipses look the same? Find out in an activity where astronomers use the Danjon Scale of Lunar Eclipse Brightness to describe the color and brightness of the moon during an eclipse. Explorers make three observations using...

Scholars read about each planet then bake a plate of cosmic cookies—no-bake cookies decorated to look like the planets; Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Sundials are more than just primitive clocks. Learners build their own sundials to study the location of the sun across the sky throughout the day. They use shadow evidence related to their sundials to make conclusions about solar movement.

Upper-elementary astronomers take on the role of interplanetary real estate salesmen. They research an assigned planet and create a PowerPoint to persuade the rest of the class to purchase property and move there. This fun project would...

Did the image I drew match the image you saw? By simulating a satellite and a ground station, teams of two transmit data in the form of pixels in order to recreate an image. They use four different levels of brightness, creating slightly...

Protect the marshmallows! Groups create contraptions that will keep marshmallows in a cup, even after dropping them from a certain height. This is a fun way to model the shock-absorbing capabilities of spacecraft.

NASA-sponsored coverage and research on a range of topics related to space exploration -- flying weather stations, comets, first steps on the Moon, and other space-related topics -- are presented in age-appropriate activities, lesson...

This site has maps of the nearest stars and constellations. Earth and star daily rotation, proper motion of the stars and many other topics about the solar system are also shown.Read phonetically

The purpose of this activity is to use scaling in order to give students an idea of the size of Mars in relation to the Earth and the Moon as well as the distance between them. The students will have to calculate dimensions of the scaled...

Want to stretch your imagination? One good way is to try to imagine how far it is to a distant star. How much farther away is it than the moon is from the earth? In this project, you'll learn one way of measuring the distance without...

[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about outer space. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.