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Please Ex-Planet
Seventh graders create a model of an earth centered solar system and a model of the sun centered solar system. As a class, they discuss why the earlier astronomers believed their model and why it changed when evidence arose that this...
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Solar System (Lesson 2)
Eighth graders identify the objects that make up the solar system. They define new vocabulary and practice using them. They discover that the sun is a star.
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Planetary Poster
Students engage in a study about the planets and create a poster as one of the projects during the study. They create individual charts for mapping the solar system so the locations can be found in mock space missions to other planets.
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Mercury
In this solar system instructional activity, students color a detailed picture of the planet Mercury. Students answer 5 essay questions about the planet.
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Science Trail
Students explore the solar system by conducting Earth science experiments. In this Sun lesson, students identify the different seasons on Earth and discuss their purpose and cause. Students create a sundial and observe the changes to...
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Space: The Final Frontier
Sixth graders construct a graph to demonstration information that they've learned about the solary system. They also write or illustrate a sonar or lunar eclipse.
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Working With Scientific Notation
In this scientific notation worksheet, students read about the discovery of new planets. They use scientific notation to identify the number of miles from one planet to the next. Students determine how long it would take to travel, when...
American Museum of Natural History
A Closer Look at Mars
A website looks at how we know so much about Mars—telescopes, robots, and spacecraft—and the search for martian life. Following the informational text are three questions that quiz pupils about possible life on Mars.
Teach Engineering
A New Angle on PV Efficiency
Let me get an angle on this! Investigate the orientation of a photovoltaic panel and its effect on efficiency. By using a light source, learners collect and plot current output to determine the ultimate orientation. The resource includes...
Wilderness Classroom
Ocean Life
Our oceans are composed of many complex relationships. Young oceanographers explore relationships between organisms, understand the world ocean's currents, and discover the effects of water pollution and how it behaves. There are...
Teach Engineering
Designing a Spectroscopy Mission
In this mind-bending activity, young engineers explore this question of whether or not light actually bends. Using holographic diffraction gratings, groups design and build a spectrograph. The groups then move on research a problem...
Science Matters
Thermal Energy Flow in Materials
The sun sends the earth 35,000 times the amount of energy required by all of us on the entire planet, every day. The fourth instructional activity in the 10-part series looks at how light energy from the sun transfers into thermal...
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Paper Rockets
Students design, construct, and fly paper rockets that travel the greatest distance possible across a floor model of the solar system. They construct small flying rockets out of paper and propel them by blowing air through a straw.
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Hubble Sees a Distant Planet
In this Hubble telescope worksheet, students solve 4 problems about the image of the distant planet the Hubble telescope discovered. Students determine the distance the planet was from its star in 2006, they determine the planet's...
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Forces That Shape the Earth: Wind, Water and Erosion
For this forces of nature worksheet, students read a 2 page article on the forces of nature and answer 4 detailed comprehension questions about the forces of nature on Earth.
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Solar System
In this solar system, students review information about the planets found in our solar system. Students complete 15 fill in the blank questions and then find the 9 planets in a word search.
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Planet Facts
Students click on the links to planets to learn facts about them. In this planets lesson plan, students read about 8 of the planets in the Solar System.
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As the World Turns
Third graders read books and participate in class discussions about the motion of the stars and planets and moons in relation to the Earth. In small groups, 3rd graders act out these movements to music.
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Clay Planets
Learners create scale models of the planets out of clay and compare them to the real planets.
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What's "Out" There?
First graders investigate the five outer planets. In this space science lesson, 1st graders read the book Our Solar System and identify the five outer planets. Students create a booklet and write about outer planets.
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Out of This World (Science)
Students participate in various hands-on activities to visually demonstrate the positions of the planets from the sun. Then they draw a pictorial representation of the order of planets from the sun.
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Planet Picking
Students arrange the planets according to their distances from the sun. In this astronomy activity, students list interesting properties about each planet. They identify an unknown planet photo.
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Colonizing the Stars
Learners compare and contrast the size, composition and surface features of the nine planets of our solar system with the possible sizes and compositions of extra -solar planets.
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Star Gazing
Third graders investigate what an astronomer is and what he studies in the solar system.