Sundials: Observing and Using Shadows

Young scholars measure shadows to learn about the Sun-Earth relationship. In this astronomy activity, students create a shadow stick of a Pokemon character and record measurements of its shadow in a data chart. Follow-up discussions...

Exactly what do groundhogs know about weather? Not as much as your science students will after completing these lessons and activities that cover everything from the earth's rotation and the creation of shadows, to cloud...

Three activities make up a solar system lesson that features the sun, its light, and the shadows it produces. Scholars step outside to discover the changes shadows make at different times of day, take part in a demonstration of how Earth...

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 satellite.

Help young scientists connect with nature and learn about trees with a fun life science lesson. Heading out into the school yard, children choose a tree to adopt, taking measurements, writing descriptions, and drawing sketches of it in...

What causes a shadow to appear? Have kindergartners and first graders explore shadows with a fun science activity. After reading a short paragraph about light sources, they draw a shadow for a little girl based on the location of the...

Blow the minds of young scientists with this collection of inquiry-based investigations. Based on a series of eight videos, these "hands-on, minds-on" science lessons engage young learners in exploring a wide range of topics from making...

Find out why your shadow looks different at various times of the day with a short earth science video. Young scientists learn about what a shadow is, why it grows longer or shorter over the course of a day, and why it points in different...

Students make accurate drawings of a classmate's shadow. They note position of the sun in the sky. They identify a connection between the direction of the shadow and the location of the sun. They observe changes in shadows over time.

Who needs a compass to find cardinal directions? Just place a stick in the ground and record the movement of its shadow over the course of a day. Then, measure the shadow lengths in order to determine a north-south line. A simple...