This is an activity about coronal mass ejections. Learners will calculate the velocity and acceleration of a coronal mass ejection, or CME, based on its position in a series of images from the Large-Angle Spectrometric Coronograph (LASCO) instrument... (View More) on NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. This is Activity 2 of a larger resource, Exploring the Sun. The NASA spacecraft missions represented by this material include SOHO, TRACE, STEREO, Hinode, and SDO. (View Less)

In this introductory lesson, students will learn the basics of the aurora through small group discussions, reflection and reading. The lesson includes teacher notes and instructions, student workshops and an online, animated story, and related... (View More) teacher resources on aurora. This is lesson one of a collection of five activities that can be used individually or as a sequence; concludes with a KWL (Know/Want-to-know/Learned) assessment activity. (View Less)

In this lesson, students will demonstrate their understanding of the aurora by writing their own poems. Teachers can decide which form(s) of poetry to use from their worksheets or allow students to create their own. Examples of styles include:... (View More) Acrostic, List, Haiku, Like and As, and May and Could. To help students get inspired, the class will read a poem on the aurora, and they can also look through their portfolios to help form ideas. Includes teacher notes and instructions, student workshops and an online, animated story, and related teacher resources on aurora. This is lesson five of a collection of five activities that can be used individually or as a sequence; concludes with a KWL (Know/Want-to-know/Learned) assessment activity. (View Less)

This is a lesson which gives students the opportunity to imagine they are scientists, provides them with a basic understanding of aurora and helps them to use creative methods in their observations. First, students will study the scientific aspect... (View More) of the aurora. They will also look at images of the aurora (both pictures and illustrations) and describe what they think of when they see them. These descriptions can be stored in the student portfolios as they will be useful in future lessons. Includes teacher notes and instructions, student workshops and an online, animated story, and related teacher resources on aurora. This is lesson three of a collection of five activities that can be used individually or as a sequence; concludes with a KWL (Know/Want-to-know/Learned) assessment activity. (View Less)

This is an activity about the Venus Transit and how it helped astronomers determine the scale of the solar system. Learners will use measurement, ratios, and graphing to construct a model of the solar system and determine the relationship of each... (View More) planet to the Sun. They will explore the scales needed to represent the size of the planets and the distances to the Sun. This activity corresponds to the NASA CONNECT video, titled Venus Transit, and has supplemental questions to support the video viewing. (View Less)