Activities
Below you will find space weather PDF activity guides suitable for teachers and students of all ages.
- Activity 1 : Northern Lights and Solar Sprites
- Activity 2 : The Instruments of IMAGE
- Activity 3 : Solar Storms and You!
- Activity 4 : IMAGE Explores
- Activity 5 : Magnetic Sensor Activities with a Graphing Calculator
- Activity 6 : Northern Lights Workbook
Activity 1 : Northern Lights and Solar Sprites
| Level: grades K-6 | DOWNLOAD Activity 1 |
| Many different areas in solar and space science are covered in highly interactive exercises. These include studying convection on the Sun, solar flares, how to design a rocket payload, and the general subject of how the Sun affects the Earth. It was specifically designed to fill a well-known gap in NASA's offerings for the lower grades, and to do so in a way that is both fun, and well-integrated with national science benchmarks and standards. | |
Activity 2 : The Instruments of IMAGE
| Level: grades 10-12 | DOWNLOAD Activity 2 |
| This is a pair of high school-level workbooks featuring advanced problems in mathematics and science that are based on experiments being performed with the IMAGE satellite. | |
Activity 3 : Solar Storms and You!
| Level: grades 7-9 | |
| This series of six workbooks has been adopted in a number of school districts in Maryland, California and Illinois. 6 different activities, each with multiple lessons... | |
| Activity 3A: Solar Activity
Cycles - The Sunspot Cycle - Suspot Activity and Ocean Temperature - Sunspot Activity on other Stars |
DOWNLOAD Activity 3A |
| Activity 3B: The Solar Wind - CME Plotting Activity - Solar Activity and CMEs - Anatomy of a CME |
DOWNLOAD Activity 3B |
| Activity 3C: Magnetic Storms - Magnetic Storms from the Ground - Motion of the Magnetic Pole - A Soda Bottle Magnetometer |
DOWNLOAD Activity 3C |
| Activity 3D: Aurora and the Ionosphere - AM Radio Ionosphere Station - Auroras and Magnetic Storms - Radio Waves and the Ionosphere |
DOWNLOAD Activity 3D |
| Activity 3E: Satellite Design - IMAGE Satellite Scaling - IMAGE Satellite Scale Model - Pie Charts in Science |
DOWNLOAD Activity 3E |
| Activity 3F: Human Impacts - Solar Storms and Satellites - Cosmic Radiation Creates Unfriendly Skies - Satellite Glitches and Cosmic Rays - Radiation Exposure on a Trip to Mars |
DOWNLOAD Activity 3F |
Activity 4 : IMAGE Explores
| Level: grades 10-12 | |
| A series of 1-page NASA Education Briefs that contain information about a specific IMAGE instrument or technology issue on the front page. On the back of the page, there is a classroom activity that students can work on that picks up on some aspect of the main essay. Typical activities may exercise geometric skills, algebraic manipulation, or graphing. More of these 1-page NASA Briefs are in production. | |
| Activity 4A: Geomagnetic Storms | DOWNLOAD Activity 4A |
| Activity 4B: The Plasmasphere | DOWNLOAD Activity 4B |
| Activity 4C: Aurora | DOWNLOAD Activity 4C |
| Activity 4D: The Magnetosphere | DOWNLOAD Activity 4D |
| Activity 4E: Ring Currents | DOWNLOAD Activity 4E |
Activity 5 : Magnetic Sensor Measurements with a Graphing Calculator
| Level: grades 9-12, but adaptable for some 6-8 classes | DOWNLOAD Activity 5 |
| This activity was developed at Rice University in Houston, TX. It uses magnetic field sensors with the "Texas Instrument" Graphing Calculator and CBL to measure and plot magnetic fields. This allows the student to prove that magnetic fields decrease as the negative cube of the distance. This was initally developed for IPC (Integrated Physics and Chemistry) classes, but some advanced middle school earth science classes can use it.
It requires the use of the following materials:
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Activity 6 : Northern Lights Workbook
