Experiments for Kids on the Planets
- Recreating a scale model of the solar system allows students to investigate the massive size of and distance between planetary objects. Based on a relatively small model of the earth, have students calculate the corresponding sizes of the planets in the solar system, as well as the overall scale of the solar system. The newly constructed model may prompt students to wonder how the earth remains in its distant orbital path around the sun.
- NASA's Planet in a Bottle experiment uses water, sugar cubes, yeast, a plastic bottle and a balloon to recreate the life-developing conditions of earth. The balloon expands with carbon dioxide when you place it over the bottle filled with water, sugar and yeast, demonstrating the yeast's consumption of the sugar, and the development of life. Students can then theorize about the possibilities of life on other planets. To test their theories, students can replicate various planetary conditions represented by the bottle's interior by heating the bottle or adding salt to the water.
- Students can attempt to visualize the movement of the planets within the solar system. Assign each student planetary object from the solar system. Explain each planet and planetary object's movement around the sun, including not just the shape of its orbit, but also how frequently it spins on its axis. For example, Earth's moon shows the same face to the Earth at all times, while simultaneously orbiting around the earth, which itself orbits around the sun. Have students start rotating around the sun as planetary objects.
- Though they have been all but abandoned since the advent of clocks, sundials once provided important information about time of day. Challenge your students to build and calibrate their own sundials by first constructing a simple, angled piece of wood or cardboard with a rod affixed perpendicularly to it. Then, using their watches, students can observe the shadow on the surface of the wood to identify how that shadow corresponds with the time. Students should then hypothesize where on the face of the wood the shadow will fall with each passing hour.
