Educational resources in astronomy
What kinds of constellations are there in different cultures? How did they get their names? In this assignment, pupils listen to stories about constellations and can then come up with and name their own constellation.
Keywords: night sky, stories, constellation
Now it’s time for your class to shine out! Test your knowledge on astronomy and observatories in “The Universe and I” quiz.
Keywords: quiz, astronomy, space
Welcome on a trip to our neighbourhood, the Solar System! How far away are the other planets from Earth? And how small is our home planet compared to the other objects that orbit our Sun?
Keywords: Solar system, planets, scale
Become a space researcher by studying a very familiar object in the sky! Our Moon orbits the Earth and always looks different: its shape and position vary at different times over the month.
Keywords: Moon, Moon phases
Asteroids are small objects that zoom around the Solar System. See if you can find the asteroid in the photos in this assignment! Pluto was discovered using this same method.
Keywords: asteroid, photos, blinking
Why is the Sun green in a photo taken with a UV camera? We can’t actually see UV light, so the colour of the photo was just chosen to be green!
In this assignment, you can choose any colour scale for an image of space taken to capture a specific wavelength of light. This activity is about making space images more interesting to look at! Which colours make the image look the most interesting?
Keywords: colour, light, wavelength
Find out what happened when asteroids hit Finland, Norway, Latvia, Greenland and the UK. You can also study the effects of your own asteroid impact with the Down2Earth impact calculator!
Keywords: crater, asteroid, small solar system bodies
Turn an old wall calendar into a timeline of the universe!
In this assignment, you will try to fit the entire history of the universe from the Big Bang to present day into one calendar year from January to December. Were you surprised to see how late humans enter the picture?
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Keywords: calendar, timeline, universe
Have you ever wondered what your body is made of? Or how much of each element you contain? Use this calculator to find out! Every element you contain that is heavier than hydrogen and helium was created over billions of years during the various developmental stages of stars. So we are made of star stuff!
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Keywords: elements, stellar evolution, human body
The rotation of the Earth is investigated by observing the length of a toy figure’s shadow in the course of a day.
As an extended task, you can use the Stellarium software to investigate the movements of the Sun. Alternatively, the students can make real observations of the position of the Sun in the sky in the course of a year (the analemma pattern).
Keywords: sky, diurnal motion, daily motion, shadow, Sun, analemma