Chromatography of Leaves

In this classic experiment, from the Royal Society of chemistry, students use propanone to separate the pigments in a leaf. Chopping up the leaves, and grinding them up with propanone releases the pigments. Propanone is also the solvent used to separate the pigments. The resource is set out as teachers' notes followed...

Earth Sun Moon Distances

Basketball EarthThis resource uses a basketball as the Earth to set up a scale model to the distance to the Moon, satellites and distances such as the thickness of the atmosphere and the height of transatlantic jets. Students must do a card matching exercise to match objects to distances in their list. It is suggested...

How Big and How Far?

How big?This resource uses scale models to understand the huge differences between the Sun and other stars in the galaxy. The spreadsheet gives scales for the Sun and five other stars, ranging from the gigantic Betelgeuse to tiny Sirius B. Students can draw out these scale models using pencils and string.How far?In...

Hubble's Universe

The aim of this resource is to understand the levels of structure in space – Solar System, galaxy, Universe. The spreadsheet exercise allows students to discover this structure in a graphical form. Students can find more examples of objects on the European Space Agency (ESA) Hubble site. The idea of creating a holiday...

I Am a Star

This resource is based around the chemical composition of the human body and the origin of elements in the universe. Students can input a mass in the spreadsheet to see what proportion of their mass is from elements created in the Big Bang, in stars and in supernovae. Graphs are also shown for the relative abundance...

Measurements with the Sun

Measuring the diameter of our star This simple exercise allows students to measure the diameter of the Sun using a metre rule and two pieces of card. An image of the Sun needs to be projected on the card using a small hole in one piece of card.Measuring the number of hours in a day Using a cardboard box and pinhole to...

Solar Tornadoes

This resource uses the context of tornadoes in the solar atmosphere to investigate circular motion and energy changes. A hole is drilled in the bottom of a washing up bowl and orange pith can be used to track the motion of the water when draining through the bottom and creating a vortex. The Key Stage Three activity...

What Is Your Real Star Sign?

By constructing a model of the constellations in the zodiac, students can learn about the relative motion of the Sun and the Earth. Students can find their own star sign and discover how the view from the Earth will change as the Earth orbits the Sun. The model allows them to see how the night sky changes over a year...

Solar Images and Data

This resource contains three activities and accompanying teachers’ notes.Picking out the detailsUsing images from the Hinode satellite and the Solar Dynamics Observatory, this activity requires students to use scale and unit conversions to learn more about the size and surface of the Sun.Handling faint and bright...

Space Weather Effects

This resource contains two activities and accompanying teachers’ notes.Effect on a solar telescopeUsing images from the SoHO satellite, students make an estimate the speed of charged particles in a Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun.Space weather and dodgy dataStudents look at data from a GPS satellite to...