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Science Activities for the Sun

Many children love science, especially when it is combined with projects and experiments. Science projects can be especially helpful when studying intangible concepts like space and the sun. Some children may have trouble visualizing how the solar system moves or how the sun's energy works. Science projects dealing with your key concepts help children see what the lessons are about on a small scale. It also gets them up and moving around and gives them something hands-on to help them remember the lessons. Fun activities also keep students interested in learning.

Demonstrating the Seasons
- This project is especially fun because your students get to move their desks to the edges of the classroom and really move around. Pick one student to be the sun and give him a battery-powered round Chinese lantern to hold. Help your students create an Earth costume. Bend wire into a globe-shaped frame, cover it with paper and help your students paint it with green and blue paint, making sure to paint everything at an angle to mimic the tilted axis of the Earth. Use a globe as a painting reference for accuracy. Make sure there is a hole at the top and bottom large enough for a child to fit into. Have the "sun" hold the lantern at about chest height. Put the Earth costume on another student. Instruct the Earth to spin slowly. Point out the place on the Earth where you live. Ask your students when it is winter and summer where you live and talk about where the sun hits the Earth during those seasons.
Solar Eclipse
- This project demonstrates how a solar eclipse works. Split your students into groups of three, giving each group a flashlight and two foam balls, one the size of a melon and one the size of a baseball. Let your students paint the balls to look like the moon and the sun. They can even paint dots on the Earth where they are and paint little flags on some of the countries. Encourage creativity.
  When the paint is dry, instruct your students to choose one person to hold the flashlight as the sun, one person to be the moon and one to be the Earth. Ask the "moon" in each group to move her ball around the Earth slowly, just as the moon moves in space. Tell her to stop when the moon gets in front of the flashlight and ask her what happened. Ask your students if everyone in the world experiences eclipses at the same time, and why or why not.
Solar Oven
- This project works especially well for older children, and teaches them about heat, energy and the environment. Solar cookers don't use fuel or smoke, so don't emit pollutants into the air, making them an environmentally friendly way to prepare food. Instruct each of your students how to make his own solar cooker, or split the class into groups and let each group create one, varying the types.
  
  Get several cardboard boxes about 2 feet long and 10 inches wide. Help one group cut shallow curves in the tops of the long sides of each box and cover a separate piece of cardboard with foil. Tape the foiled cardboard into the curves. Help another group cover a flat base with foil and cut apart its box, covering those pieces with foil as well. Glue the foiled box pieces at 90-degree angles to the base. Let your students cook hot dogs and veggie kabobs on skewers.

Astronomy