Getting kids to enjoy learning about science can be a difficult task. It’s always easier for the kids to learn (and for the teacher to teach) if the students are having fun at the same time as learning. The following activities are designed to help students around the fourth-grade-level or so to learn about aspects of astronomy. Certain of these activities could be adapted for various other age levels.
Venus Topography Box
The surface of the planet Venus is completely obscured by clouds, yet astronomers have a very good idea of what the surface looks like. This activity helps kids get an idea of how that happens. First, take a shoebox and use modeling clay to form some sort of irregularly-shaped surface on the bottom of the box. Include things like mountains, ridges, and valleys. Punch holes in the box cover and put it on. Take a stick of some sort (pencil, popsicle stick, etc.) that has regularly spaced markings on it and poke it through the holes, measuring how many markings stick out in different spots. The kids will be able to tell where the topography is higher or lower, even though they can’t see the ground, just like on Venus.
Meteorite Craters
This activity is fun, but messy. Be sure to cover the floor with trash bags or blankets first. Take a baking pan and fill it with an inch or so of flour. Put a thin layer of cocoa powder on top of the flour, just enough to obscure the flour. When a rock is dropped into the pan, the cocoa powder will be packed at the bottom of the crater, with the flour forming a spray pattern on top of the cocoa powder layer. This shows very well how the ejecta from meteorite impacts comes from the underneath layers rather than the top.
This same setup can be used for other experiments as well. One is to take three different-sized rocks and drop them from the same height, measuring the width of the craters each time to determine how the size of the meteorite affects the size of the crater. A similar experiment is to drop the same rock from three different heights to see how much effect meteorite speed has on crater size.
Planet Scales
To give kids an idea of how big the Earth and Moon are in comparison to each other, draw a circle 16 inches in diameter on a paper or chalkboard to represent the Earth. Then have the students draw how big they think the Moon would be on that scale (the proper size would be a circle four inches in diameter). Kids often have widely varying ideas of the relative sizes of the Earth and Moon.
In a similar vein, draw a circle of any size to represent the Earth and have the students guess the relative sizes of the Sun and other planets. Use a planet scale generator to determine the sizes of all major Solar System bodies relative to any sized Earth.
Fun With Astronomy
Astronomy is an area of science that tends to appeal to extremely wide audiences, both young and old. For younger students, it can be used as a jumping off point to talk about anything from mathematics to social studies and cultural history, depending on what aspects of the discipline a teacher chooses to explore. Getting kids interested in astronomy, using fun activities like these, is a great way to inspire young students.
Source: Universe at Your Fingertips: An Astronomy Activity and Resource Notebook. Project ASTRO, Andrew Fraknoi (ed.). The Astronomy Society of the Pacific, San Francisco, 1995.
Talia Sepersky - I am a 2008 graduate of Wellesley College, where I earned my Bachelor's in astrophysics. A year later I earned my Master's in science ...
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