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Comet Encounters
Students create glitter-covered comet models. Then they make large outdoor chalk drawings of the solar system and place their comets at the location of the Kuiper belt. They carry their comets around an orbit of the sun, shaking various...
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A High-Resolution Satellite Photo
In this high resolution satellite photograph learning exercise, learners observe a photograph taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of the Tennessee Court House. Students use the photograph to solve 4 problems about the scale of the...
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Compass Rose
Young scholars describe the movement of the Earth as it relates to the sun. They construct a permanent compass rose and use it to find directions.
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Extreme Flashlight Tag
Fifth graders view a Powerpoint show about reflecting light. They experiment through a reflection simulation on the internet. Students complete the activity by using mirrors and light to complete send light to a specified spot.
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Jupiter
A student-produced PowerPoint provides basic facts about the planet of Jupiter. Illustrated slides highlight its physical attributes and satellites. A lot of interesting information about Jupiter is included, such as the fact that twenty...
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Solar Storms
Students investigate the cycles of solar activity. They plot the solar activity and use the graph to answer a number of questions and explain the relationship between the solar storms and sunspots and the impact on earth and space travel.
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Break the Code: Astronomy
Here is a quick puzzle-style worksheet for your aspiring astronomers. A code is printed at the top of the page and learners use it to fill in the blanks describing different phenomena or objects in outer space. The material does not even...
Big Kid Science
Create Dynamic Art Using the Eclipse!
What happens to light as it passes through a hole? This is the main question centered around the designing of a solar eclipse dynamic art piece that uses a solar eclipse and paper to create a pinhole projection of the art.
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Sunspot Graphing
Students, using 15 years of sunspot data, plot data on a classroom graph. They discuss why the pattern from their individual sheets did not and could not match the class graph.
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The Summer Sun is Hot, Hot, Hot
Students recognize the short vowel o in written and spoken language. Through listening and matching activities, they discriminate the short vowel /o/ from other vowel phonemes. Students associate /o/ with its letter representation and...
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Meteor, Meteoroid, Meteorite: What's the Difference?
Students explore the difference between a meteor, meteorite and meteoroid. In this space science lesson, students first read information about these space bodies. Students make Comet Cookies and use them to model a meteor shower with a...
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Sunny Day Shadow Pictures
Students explore shadows. In this art lesson, students put black construction paper on the ground and place objects on the paper. Students leave and when they come back at the end of the afternoon the sun has faded the black paper with...
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Temperature and Color Experiment
In this temperature and color experiment activity, students follow the procedures to set up an experiment to measure the temperature of black and white paper in the sun.
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Galileo's Battle for the Heavens
Students view a video about Galileo's discoveries. They work together to create graphs showing the current sunspot cycle. They discuss how sunspots can cause communication devices problems.
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Sunspot Activity
In this sunspot activity activity, students are given a table with 3 types of flares produced by sunspots based on their brightness. Students answer 5 questions by interpreting the data and they determine the percentages of the different...
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Hinode-Close Up of a Sunspot
In this solar sunspot learning exercise, students use two photographs from the Hinode solar observatory showing a sunspot on the solar surface. Students solve 5 problems including finding the scale of the images, determining the smallest...
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Monster Sunspots!
In this sunspots worksheet, students read about the large sunspots observed for thousands of years and their indication of solar storms. Students use given images to find the scales and physical sizes of the 3 sunspots shown.
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Sunlight & Soil
In this earth science worksheet on sunlight and soil, students use data collected in a chart to construct two graphs. Following, they answer five questions as they relate to the experiment performed.
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What Makes the Wind Blow?
Student study the properties of wind. They make a miniature hot-air balloon and compose diamond-shaped poems about the wind. They explain that as the sun warms air around the earth, the air rises. Colder air then moves in to fill the...
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Jupiter
In this solar system worksheet, 3rd graders read facts about Jupiter including its position from the sun, the length of its year, and number of moons. They read about its color, clouds, and Red Spot.
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Shadow Chasing
First graders observe and measure their shadows. They go outside at three hour increments during the course of a day. Each time students measure and record the length of their shadows. Students read books about shadows and discuss why...
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Investigation 3 - What is Moonlight?
Third graders observe a demonstration explaining that the moon reflects sunlight in ordr to shine.
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Sunspot Classification
Learners study classification schemes for identifying sunspots. They distinguish between sunspot unbrae and penunbrae, measure sunspots, and compare them to the size of the Earth. They complete a worksheet showing classification of...
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Sunspots and Climate
Students make a graph that shows how the number of sunspots has changed over the past 30 years and discover how there is a pattern in sunspot number. They find a disruption in this pattern due to the Little Ice Age.