This is an activity during Solar Week, a twice-yearly event in March and October during which classrooms are able to interact with scientists studying the Sun. Outside of Solar Week, information, activities, and resources are archived and available... (View More) online at any time. This is an activity about telling time using the Sun. Learners will create a solar shadow tool and use it to chart changes in the Sun's altitude through the seasons. This activity is scheduled to occur during Thursday of Solar Week. The activity requires access to a sunny outdoor location over the course of several days, weeks, or months, as well as materials and equipment such as pine board, dowel rod piece, drill and drill bit, saw, bulls-eye level, small nails, and either wood glue or hot glue. (View Less)

This is an online set of information about astronomical alignments of ancient structures and buildings. Learners will read background information about the alignments to the Sun in such structures as the Great Pyramid, Chichen Itza, and others.... (View More) Next, the site contains 10 short problem sets that involve a variety of math skills, including determining the scale of a photo, measuring and drawing angles, plotting data on a graph, and creating an equation to match a set of data. Each set of problems is contained on one page and all of the sets utilize real-world problems relating to astronomical alignments of ancient structures. Each problem set is flexible and can be used on its own, together with other sets, or together with related lessons and materials selected by the educator. This was originally included as a folder insert for the 2010 Sun-Earth Day. (View Less)

This is a lesson plan for an activity illustrating the reasons for the seasons. Learners predict sunrise, noon, and sunset positions on the dates of the equinoxes and solstices, observe these positions in a planetarium, plot their data on graphs,... (View More) and make further observations and predictions using a light to represent the Sun and the positions of pins on a styrofoam ball to represent various locations on the Earth. The first part of this activity requires facilitation inside a planetarium. This is activity B-7 of Universe at Your Fingertips 2.0: A Collection of Activities and Resources for Teaching Astronomy DVD-ROM, which is available for purchase. (View Less)

This is a lesson plan for an activity about the changing horizon positions of sunrise. Learners will predict horizon positions of sunrise on several dates throughout the year and plot monthly azimuth data on a graph using data from Stonehenge. In a... (View More) further enhancement of this activity, learners explore the changing azimuth of sunrise using Stonehenge data from two or more successive days for each month of the year. (View Less)

This is a lesson plan for an activity illustrating the reasons for the seasons. Learners predict sunrise, noon, and sunset positions on the dates of the equinoxes and solstices, observe these positions in a planetarium, plot their data on graphs,... (View More) and make further observations and predictions using a light to represent the Sun and the positions of pins on a styrofoam ball to represent various locations on the Earth. The first part of this activity requires facilitation inside a planetarium. This is Actividad 2.4 of the Spanish-language El Universo a sus Pies, which is available for purchase. (View Less)

This is an activity that uses numerical information to help dispel the prior conception that distance from the Sun causes the seasons on Earth. Learners will examine two images of the Sun, taken six months apart, measure the apparent diameter of the... (View More) Sun over the course of twelve months, calculate the approximate Earth-Sun distance for each observation, and graph the data. This is Actividad 2.6 in the Spanish-language El Universo a sus Pies, which is available for purchase. (View Less)