Educational resources in astronomy
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
Students will explore the moon through a comprehension activity. Reading the document provided to them and answering a set of questions. They will need to analyse text to pick out the key, relevant, information and then use this to fill out the work sheet in the student guide.
Age Range: 12-16
Prep. Time: 0
Lesson Time: 1 hour
Cost per activity: Low (printing costs)
Includes the use of: Pen/pencil, printouts
Did Man land on the Moon, or was it faked?
In this activity, students will be given a range of pieces of evidence including a short video of the Apollo 11 lunar landings. They will examine 21 different pieces of evidence arranged around the classroom. Approximately half of the evidence suggests that the Moon landings were faked, the other half indicate they were real. The students are given a worksheet to fill in as they tour the evidence, forming their own opinions.
Age Range: 9-12
Prep. Time: 10 minutes
Lesson Time: 1 hour
Cost per activity: Low (print costs)
Includes the use of: Printouts, post-it notes
The moon is Earths natural satellite and a key element of our night sky. This activity starts with an overview of the moon and will deepen understanding of the phases of the lunar cycle and their names. Students will then complete an investigation to discover why the moon appears to us the way it does.
Age Range: 9-11
Prep. Time: 10 minutes
Lesson Time: 1 hour
Cost per activity: Medium
Includes the use of: Balls, printouts, markers
Orrery’s are fantastic tools to demonstrate the planetary motions in our Solar System, but rare since they often require an advanced (accurate) clock work to work. It is however straight forward to make one for your self with paper and scissors. The children can colour their own orrery and play with it to explore several interesting phenomena in our Solar System.
Download the pdf and print it, one per child, and follow the instructions printed on the sheet. You will need colours, scissors, split pins (split clips) and a laminator (optional). If you do not have a laminator machine, it is advisable to print the file below on the thickest paper you have available.
Keywords: children, paper, scissors, paper clips,
In this exercise we will observe the phases of the Moon over time or using Stellarium. Afterwards we draw each phase in to a series of cards, which we use to make our very own moon-book, which you can flip through to remind and entertain you.
Age Range: all ages, younger children will need help with scissors.
Prep. Time: 5 minutes
Activity Time: 20 minutes
Cost per activity: Low
Materials: Scissors, Stapler, Pencil / colours, Thicker paper
In this activity, pupils will learn about the formation of the Moon. They will also learn about the lunar orbit and the distance to the Moon. In groups, pupils will perform simple classroom experiments to investigate how craters are formed when a small asteroid strikes a planetary surface. They will understand that the appearance of a crater depends on the speed of the rock and to a lesser degree the angle at which it hits the ground.
This app allows you to simulate impacts on the Earth, Moon or Mars.
You can select the impactor parameters (composition, size, velocity, angle of impact) and then choose a target location. The crater that would be produced by your impactor is then displayed, along with various facts and figures about the impact.
You can compare your crater with real craters on each of the target bodies.