Habitable Zones

What is a ‘Goldilocks Zone’? Can you plot the orbits of planets in our own and distant solar systems?

In this activity, students will become galactic astronomers, using mathematical skills and key facts to plot the orbits of Earth and planets in our solar system before plotting the orbits of exoplanets around their stars. By plotting the orbits of Earth and other planets in our solar system, they can then learn about and calculate the position of the Goldilocks Zone and discover which of these exoplanets are potentially habitable.

Age Range: 9-11
Prep. Time: 20 minutes
Lesson Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
Cost per activity: Medium
Includes the use of: Calculator, scissors, paper, rulers, coloured pens/pencils, star system info sheets

Slide Pack

Teachers Guide and Model Answers

Student Guide and Info sheets

Exoplanet Designer

In this session, students will learn about exoplanets. Working together in groups to design their own planets, students will use their imagination and creativity to decide on what sort of conditions would be present. This session also has opportunities for groups to present to the rest of the class. This session also covers themes of adaptation and evolution as they create their own unique life form to survive the conditions on one of the planets.

Age Range: 7-11
Prep. Time: 15 minutes
Lesson Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
Cost per activity: Medium
Includes the use of: Arts and crafts supplies, computer or tablets with internet access, books

Slide Pack

Teacher Guide

Student Guide

Investigating Dwarf Planets

What makes something a planet? Is Pluto a planet?

This set of resources introduces students to the story of Pluto and its history. Through the accompanying slide pack and activities, students will be encouraged to try and define a planet and decide which statements might apply to other space objects. They will then apply this learning to the five dwarf planets in our solar system and the Kuiper belt.

Age Range: 10-13
Prep. Time: 5 minutes
Lesson Time: 1 hour 35 minutes
Cost per activity: Low
Includes the use of: Internet (optional)

Teacher Slide Pack

Teacher Guide

Student Guide and Activity Sheets

Changing Times with a Planisphere

This activity follows on from Locating Objects on a Planisphere.

In this activity, you will continue to familiarise yourself with a planisphere and discover the impact of the motion of the Earth on where stars appear in the sky.

Teacher Guides

Student Guides

Keywords: planisphere, observing the sky, sidereal time, co-ordinates

Locating objects on a Planisphere

The positions of stars are found using their celestial co-ordinates just as objects on Earth can be located by latitude and longitude.

Depending on where you stand on Earth, what you see in the sky will vary. Using a planisphere allows us to work out what is above us and where it has been or will be.

This activity will help you understand how a planisphere works. You will learn to locate constellations and stars on a planisphere, and to assign celestial co-ordinates to stars. The activity also explores the visibility of objects in the sky throughout the year.

Before beginning the activity, you may wish to look at the ‘Calibrating the Planisphere’ activity first and also be aware of which latitude planisphere you are using:

Calibrating the Planisphere

Teacher Guide

Student Guides

Keywords: planisphere, observing the sky, mapping, co-ordinates

Planetary motions

In this activity, we will demonstrate and model the solar system motions with our selves as objects. In this activity, we will try to find what is the directions of motion and rotation of the the moon and inner planets. How can we “shift” our perspective of the solar system between a stationary observer and an observer standing on a rotating Earth?

Colour the universe

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?

This material is also available in:

Keywords: colour, light, wavelength

Dark Matter in Spiral Galaxies

In this project the students will gain insight into why astronomers think there are large amounts of dark matter in galaxies. Dark matter is material that is “dark” in the sense that it neither absorbs nor emits electromagnetic radiation (“light”). We can infer its presence through the gravitational effect it has on the matter we can see (stars and gas).   

MATERIALS